


The Guide to Everything Supernatural

by forever21lupus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Love, Original Character(s), how does one tag, slooooooow burn, very long story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-05-21 08:55:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 61,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6045570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forever21lupus/pseuds/forever21lupus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danielle Samson, a sophomore at Duke University School of Medicine, begins to have recurring dreams about two brothers who hunt monsters. At first, she discounts them as nothing but nightmares, but when her dreams start coming true she realizes that something supernatural is going on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. danielle

  **PART ONE  
**

**PROPHETS FOR DUMMIES**

 

_“for i know the plans i have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” - Jeremiah 29:11_

 

Danielle Samson stepped out of the lecture hall, barely managing to hold back a frustrated sigh when another classmate swallowed her in a sympathy hug. Her days had morphed into nothing but hugs and people who didn’t even know her crying and holding her hands and promising to be there when she needed them. It was nice to know she was cared for, but it was tedious. Especially now. She mostly wanted to be left alone.

She answered all questions politely, letting out an exhausted breath once she was alone again. A hand covered her eyes as she hesitated. She was glad it was dark so that no one noticed the tremor in her lips or how her fingers couldn’t stay still. The anticipation of what was about to happen set her teeth on edge; she wanted nothing more than to just run away. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t.

When her hand fell, she saw them. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the two FBI agents from the other day. They leaned against their antique car, hungry eyes scanning the crowd of med students rushing from the doors. Her keys, previously dangling from her fingers, were clenched tight in her hand now, and she felt fear freezing her blood and making it difficult to walk.

Despite knowing that she shouldn’t, she tried to get away. She ducked her head, slipping into the middle of the crowd, hoping against hope that maybe this would go differently. Maybe she could manage it, maybe she-

The people in front of her split, and they were right in front of her. They tried to appear casual, hands in pockets, but their eyes betrayed them. She knew what they were, knew that the whole FBI thing was nothing more than a ruse.

“Danielle, hey,” Agent Tyler greeted with a smile that cut her deep with terror. “Can we talk? In private?”

She gave a faint nod, feeling light-headed, but they herded her back to the lecture hall, which was now empty. Every movement was stiff with fear, and she stopped about halfway down the stairs before slowly turning to face them. Her bag slipped off her shoulder and onto the ground. “I know what y’all are here for,” she said, her voice shaky. “I know… Y’all aren’t FBI.”

“Then you can go ahead and drop the cutesy Southern Belle act,” Sam said, eyes hard.

“I- It’s not an act,” she stammered, and she crossed her arms to try and hide how badly her hands were shaking. “I’m not a witch.”

Dean let out a scornful snort. “And we’re just supposed to believe you?”

Her cheeks flushed. “I- Yes?”

Dean started to close in, Sam on his heels. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she squeezed down an aisle to try and keep the distance between them. “You’re Sam and Dean Winchester,” she said, quick. “Your dad’s name is John, your mom’s Mary-”

“Big whoop. Lots of people know us.” Sam started inching down the aisle beside her, while Dean just continued plowing towards her. His hand moved to his waist, pulling out a gun, and her knees nearly gave out. She leaned against the back of the seat to keep from falling.

“I- You went to Hell!” she blurted out. “You sold your soul to save Sam; an angel named Castiel pulled you out!”

They paused, exchanging a glance before Sam asked, “How did you know all that?”

Her lips parted in shock, mouth going dry. “C- Castiel is real too?”

Dean chuckled, shaking his head. “No, I’ve had it up to here with your witch crap.” He flipped off the safety.

“Wait,” she begged, terror pulsating through her like a heartbeat. Not again. “Please, no, _wait_!”

The hunter ignored her, cocking the gun and pointing the barrel at her chest. Just as he took aim, the room started trembling. She fell over then, clutching onto the nearest chair and folding in on herself as she moaned “No” over and over again.

The boys staggered, light filtering through the windows despite the fact that it was well into the night. Dean leaned his hip against a chair, aiming at the girl again to put a stop to this. “Wait!” Sam said. “It’s not her!”

A high-pitched piercing noise accompanied the rest of the chaos as the shaking only grew worse. Sam cupped his ears, and Dean flinched.

“Put the gun down, Dean!”

The trembling stopped, and Danielle peeked up from the crook of her elbow. The chance of seeing anything other than a burn mark on the ground was slim, but, sure enough, the boys were still there. They had their backs to her. She looked past them and saw the blurry outline of a beige trench coat.

“What the hell is going on?”

“She’s not to be harmed. She’s a prophet of the Lord.”

 

* * *

 

Twenty Six Hours Earlier 

 

“Dean, get out here,” Sam barked from where he sat on the corner of the hotel bed.

Dean stepped out of the bathroom, toothbrush dangling from his mouth as he shrugged into his flannel shirt. “The hell is it so cold in here?” he mumbled around the brush, scowling at the walls.

“Shut up and listen.”

Dean came to his brother’s side, and they narrowed their eyes, leaning forward and watching the news program. The anchorwoman was crisp and pristine, not a hair out of place. She sat a desk, shuffling through papers, a picture of a pretty middle-eastern girl in the corner of the screen.

“In other news,” she chirped, voice far too cheerful for the news she was reporting, “a student at Duke University has fallen victim to a deadly accident. Addison Charles, twenty-two, was meeting her best friend in one of the University’s science labs when it mysteriously exploded. The whole room was destroyed save for the area where the friend was standing, miraculously leaving the friend alive and unharmed.”

Sam glanced up at Dean, raising his eyebrows. “Sounds like our kinda thing.”

Dean grimaced. “Yeah, definitely.”

“The police haven’t found the source of the explosion, though a gas leak is the expected culprit. The eye-witness to the death, Duke graduate Danielle Samson, has refused to give a statement, and has been released from being a suspect.”

The Winchesters stared at the new picture in the corner of the screen, this time of a smiling brunette with dark eyes. At first glance, she looked perfectly normal; but then again, so did most monsters.

“Duke it is, then.”

Only a few hours later found them walking up to the destroyed building with the sheriff. Whatever was left of the walls were charred and crumbling, glass and other debris scattered all around the area. Everything in a fifty-yard radius was burned in a near-perfect circle, radiating from the middle of the room. Students walking by couldn’t resist stopping and staring, despite the incident having occurred almost two days ago.

“A bomb did this?” Sam asked, skeptical expression giving away his doubt.

The policeman sighed, scratching the back of his head and readjusting his hat. “That’s what the report says but…”

“But?” Dean urged.

“What the hell kind of bomb do you know that does _that_?” The sheriff pointed, and Sam and Dean followed his finger.

There was an area against the wall that was perfectly untouched. It was immaculate, from the sparkling white tile to the anatomy poster hanging on the wall. There wasn’t a speck of ash or dust in the spot, which was just big enough for a person to fit inside.

“What the hell?” Dean muttered, stepping over the ruined wall and walking over to the area.

“Exactly. That’s where the other girl was standing.”

“What was her name again?” Sam asked, pulling out a notepad and jotting down notes.

“Danielle Samson,” the cop answered, grimacing. “Great student, really good kid. This really shook her up.”

“And you guys are sure she didn’t pull this?” Dean asked from where he was across the room, kicking at a pile of ashes.

“Absolutely. Kid’s got a heart of gold. Real religious type.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, Dean turning his back so that no one could see his smirk. The religious ones were always the worst types.

“We’re gonna need an address,” Sam said.

“Yeah, sure.” The man recited it to Sam, who scribbled it on his pad. “Good luck. She’s not saying much and, what she does say, doesn’t make a lick of sense.” The sheriff nodded before going over to talk with one of his deputies.

“Huh.”

Sam looked over at Dean, who was crouched on the ground. Sam picked his way across the room to him, peering over his brother’s shoulder.

“What is it?”

Dean waved a yellow-dusted finger in the air. “Sulfur.”

“What?” Sam demanded, unable to resist sticking his own finger in the powder. He sniffed it, the foul smell unmistakable. “So, what, this Danielle girl’s a demon?”

Dean shrugged, standing up and brushing his hand off on his pants. They headed back down to their car, clambering in and heading for the address the sheriff had given them. “Seems like it.”

“How could a demon have blown up the place like that?” Sam asked. There were too many inconsistencies, so many pieces that couldn’t fit the puzzle. “And what about that spot that was left perfectly untouched? And what would demons want with a college girl?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” Dean said. They stuffed flasks of holy water in their suit pockets, Dean stuffing Ruby’s knife in his belt. Her apartment was only a short drive away, and a large man opened the door when they knocked.

"Um, we're Agents Tyler and Perry. We're here to talk to Danielle Samson."

"Tyler Perry?" he questioned sardonically, cocking an eyebrow.

"Yes. Funny coincidence," Dean stated.

"We've already talked to the police, sorry." He started to close the door before a much quieter voice stopped her.

"It’s okay, Dad."

The man glanced over his shoulder before finally opening the door and stepping back.

Sam and Dean stepped into the small apartment, the counters covered with flowers and casseroles. A girl girl stood in the kitchen, watching Sam and Dean, though she looked much too young to be in college, let alone medical school.

"Danielle?" Sam asked, furrowing his brow at the girl.

"She's in there."

Sam and Dean walked into the living room, where another pretty brunette was sitting on a couch. She had a blanket wrapped around her, and her brown eyes were puffy and red. She looked up at them, her eyes growing huge in shock before she looked away, recomposing herself.

"Special agents?" she questioned. "Like the FBI? That's pretty cool."

"Well, there are perks," Dean stated.

"Sit down wherever," the father said, sitting next to Danielle on the couch.

"Danielle, can you tell us everything that happened?" Sam questioned, sitting in a wooden chair next to Dean.

"I don't understand; don't you already know?" he demanded.

"Dad," Danielle warned.

"We just want to cover all the bases."

"Well-"

"Why don't you go get some lunch," Danielle offered, sending a pointed glance towards her dad. "Take Sophie." Her dad wasn't happy, but he complied, leaving the brothers alone with Danielle.

"Sorry, he just doesn't want me to get laughed at," Danielle apologized, shaking her head.

"Why would you get laughed at?" Sam questioned.

"Nobody believes me," the brunette warned, glancing up at the two of them.

"We're a little more...open-minded," Dean responded. "Just start from the beginning."

"Well, Addy called me wanting to meet up at the lab to study for the test coming up in Adolescent Medicine. I got there first; she's always running late. I only waited for like a minute before she showed up.

"She was acting really ... weird. Like ... I don't really know how to explain it," Danielle sighed in frustration, her brow furrowed.

"Like she wasn't herself?" Sam offered.

"I guess. But then ... It all happened so fast." Danielle's eyes started tearing up, and she looked down, picking at a thread in her blanket. "The whole room started shaking, and then light started shining through the windows, even though it was nighttime. Things started breaking and flying around the room, and then Addy was screaming and then everything just ... exploded."

Danielle brought a hand to her face, closing her eyes and taking a ragged breath. "I'm sorry.”

“Take your time,” Sam said as Dean quickly uncapped his flask. He poured it into her glass of water sitting on the coffee table while she had her eyes covered. She brushed at her cheeks as he stuffed the vial back into his pocket.

Clearing her throat, she took a sip from the glass. Nothing. The boys shared a glance; if she wasn’t a demon, then what?

"We're sorry for your loss," Sam apologized. "Did you happen to see anything? Anything at all?"

Danielle frowned, avoiding their gazes. "No, the light was too bright."

"Danielle," Sam urged. "You can tell us."

She glanced up at them, grimacing. "It was hard to see; it was like looking at the sun but ... I swear, I saw a ... a wing."

That night, Sam and Dean struggled to puzzle out the mystery in their motel room. There were so many pieces of the story that weren’t matching up, that didn’t make sense. In every scenario that they could think of, there were still about half a dozen questions that popped up.

“If Danielle wasn’t the demon, it had to have been Addison,” Dean said.

“But what protected her from it?” Sam asked, tossing down the police report and scratching his head.

“Lights, explosions, wings? Maybe she’s got a guardian angel.” Dean tossed his brother a beer.

“But why would something want to protect _her_? What makes her so special?”

“Found anything yet?” Dean leaned over Sam’s shoulder, squinting at the laptop screen.

“No, I mean, she’s squeaky clean. Church three times a week, all but runs the local homeless care clinic, and volunteering wherever she can in between. She’s practically Queen of the goodie-goodie’s.”

“Sounds too good to be true.”

“Exactly,” Sam said as Dean sat on the bed. “You know, she could be a witch. That’s the only other type of thing with that kind of power.”

“Maybe,” Dean responded as he nodded. “We’ll just have to go back and check for hex bags.”

They staked out the next day. Her family left early that morning, bags in tow as they took a taxi to the airport. They waited a couple hours longer before Danielle left for her classes. As soon as she was gone from the parking lot, they tried to sneak into the apartment room.

“Try the mat,” Dean said, the doorknob locked.

“Not there.” Sam reached up and ran his fingers along the top of the doorframe. He came back with only dust. Dean spotted a potted plant at the end of the hall. He went over and dug through the dirt, finally closing his fingers around a key. “That could be anybody’s.”

“Worth a shot.” He tried the key, the lock clicking before they eased their way inside. Sam checked the living room while Dean searched her bedroom. He tried to put everything he disturbed back exactly as he found it so it didn’t raise suspicions. Sure enough, he found a box full of occult objects tucked under her bed.

"One under the couch, one in the bookshelf," Sam stated, holding up the hex bags he’d found.

"Look at this," Dean added, showing his brother the box.

"Looks like she's our girl," Sam said, pocketing the bags.

The boys got her class schedule from the police station and immediately headed to the University campus. It was late in the night by the time they parked outside her last class's lecture hall. They leaned up against their car and waited for the girl to appear.

"So what's the game plan?" Sam asked, sticking his hands deep in his coat pockets. "Just lure her somewhere private, and shoot her?"

"Any other option?" Dean responded, checking his gun.

"Guess not," Sam sighed.

* * *

 

Danielle's legs were trembling so badly she collapsed into the nearest chair, clutching onto the armrest until her knuckles were white. Her face as pale as a sheet, she turned her chocolate eyes on the men.

"Even if I was a witch, you couldn't kill me. That...thing won't let you."

"That was an archangel," Castiel stated, stepping forward.

Danielle's jaw dropped, and goosebumps exploded over her skin. "You mean... Like G-Gabriel?"

The man nodded, once. "Yes. Except that was Raphael."

"What in the hell did you say she was?" Dean demanded.

"A Prophet of the Lord."

Danielle moaned, cupping her face with her hands. She was exhausted. Maybe this was all another one of her dreams. "I am not Moses."

"No, you are Danielle," Trenchcoat answered, confused. "Another form of the name Daniel, the-"

"Dream interpreter," Danielle interrupted. "I know my Bible stories. This is too much," she whispered, shaking her head.

"If she's a prophet, how come she didn't know she was?" Sam asked. "Didn't you know this was going to happen?"

"I had a dream," she answered faintly. "But it ended with the...archangel coming."

"So you knew about us?" Dean questioned.

"Yes. Agents Tyler Perry," she joked softly, smirking slightly. Her smile fell, and she gripped the armrest tighter. "Why did Addison try to kill me?"

"That wasn't Addison," Sam stated. "That was a demon."

She wiped at her cheeks. This was all too much. Castiel, archangels- she was a _prophet._ Like Moses, she was the voice piece of God. It was too much.

“I must go. It was an honor to meet you.”

She gaped at him, but he disappeared before she could say anything. She jumped and glanced around. “Does he always do that?” she asked.

“It’s a bad habit,” Dean said. He rubbed his hands on his jeans. “Look, sorry for the whole… almost shooting you thing.”

Her dark waves bounced as she shook her head and waved it away, as if it was nothing. “What now?”

"We hit the road," Sam responded. "Get outta dodge."

"What about me?" Danielle questioned.

Dean shrugged. "Stay here. Buckle up. Finish school. Be ready in case we ever need you."

"Call us if you ever need anything," Sam said, handing her a business card with their actual phone numbers on it. "Or if something big happens in the future."

Danielle looked stunned, but she took the card anyways. "Bye, then."

"See you around, Danny," Dean stated.

She nodded at them as the two brothers walked out of the lecture hall, leaving her alone, clutching the fragile piece of paper.


	2. of angels and men

 

_“for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” - Ephesians 6:12_

 

Her friend’s phone buzzed, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Her face paled, and her hands shook as she quickly responded to the message. She’d been doing it the whole time they’d been at the coffee house.

“Is this Pretty Little Liars or something?” Danielle asked. “Seriously, what’s wrong?”

“I- I have to go.” She nearly tripped over herself in her hurry to get away.

Danielle sighed, dropping her head in her hands. Lately, it seemed like everyone was acting strangely. Distracted. Then again, it was getting close to finals week. They were all feeling the pressure.

Her head hurt. She dug her nails into her scalp in an attempt to divert the pain, but the slow throb only grew worse the longer she sat there. Knowing what was coming, she ducked out of the shop and headed back to her apartment.

The vision had her waking up, drenched in sweat. As soon as she woke up again, she was on the phone with the boys. It took the better part of the day before there was a knock at her door. “Thanks for coming,” she said as she let them in.

“How you feelin’?” Sam asked. He didn’t miss the shadows under her eyes and the near-sickly pallor of her skin.

“Yeah. Getting ready for finals.” She offered them drinks before they settled into the living room.

“So. Your dream?” Dean prompted.

She pressed her lips together. “There’s a demon. Her name is Lilith.”

“Yeah, we know,” Dean said. “What about her?”

“She’s coming,” she whispered.

“ _What_?” Dean demanded, jumping to his feet. “When? Where?”

She flinched at his sudden onslaught, sinking deeper into the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. His voice grated against her throbbing head. “Please don’t yell,” she pleaded. “I’m not sure when. Or where. It was dark, so nighttime? It looked like a motel room. I’m not sure.”

“It’s okay, Danielle,” Sam reassured. “You did good.”

“We need a plan,” Dean said.

That night found Danielle shivering in her car. “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” she mumbled. She was sitting in a car in a motel parking lot, the flickering _no vacancy_ sign the only light offered, waiting for a demon to show up.

“Really?” Dean asked around a mouthful of french fries. The greasy paper bag crinkled as he reached for more. “By the time I was your age, I’d done a lot stupider.”

She snorted; that wasn’t hard to believe. Her eyelids started to droop; they’d been sitting out there for forever, watching Sam’s blurry silhouette pace in front of the window. She readjusted her feet propped up on the steering wheel, drumming her hands on her thighs to keep her awake.

“Wait a second,” Dean said.

“What?” Danielle demanded. “What is it?”

He leaned forward, and her mouth went dry with fear. He shoved the bag under the dash as they squinted at the curtains. Sam’s silhouette was gone, though. “I don’t see anything,” she said. “What are you lookin’ at?”

“ _Sh_ ,” he hissed. She pressed her lips together, and they watched for a moment longer. Sam didn’t show up again. “Let’s go,” he said, jumping out of the car. Danielle fumbled with the door, jogging to catch up with him. The doorknob was locked, and he kicked down the door like they did in the movies.

Lilith stood up from straddling Sam on the bed, a knife clenched in her manicured hands. Horrified, the prophet froze behind Dean. Almost immediately, the walls started to tremble.

“You have got to be kidding,” Lilith growled, rolling her eyes.

“Sorry, sister. But this girl’s gotta archangel tethered to her. You really wanna mess with that?” Dean bellowed as the furniture shook and glass shattered. The windows blasted to pieces, and Danielle jumped towards Dean.

The demon gritted her teeth before throwing her head back. Thick, black smoke shot out of her mouth and billowed out the window. The room calmed. Danielle gasped in relief, sagging against the wall as her legs trembled.

“You okay?” Dean demanded, running and helping Sam up.

Danielle, thinking Dean was talking to her, waved a hand. “Yeah, just-”

“I’m fine,” Sam interrupted, and she flushed scarlet. Luckily, neither of them noticed. At least, neither commented on it. “Just glad the plan worked.”

“Yeah, before she got her demon kicks on,” Dean snarked. He glanced back at Danielle, who had her hands on her knees. “You good to drive home?”

She pushed herself up, wiping her sweaty palm on her jeans. “Yeah, I guess.”

The Winchesters met their prophet late the following morning for brunch before they skipped town. Danielle wished they didn’t have to leave so soon; it was comforting to have the brothers around. When they weren’t trying to kill her, they weren’t all that bad.

The waitress was acting particularly skittish, but it was no different from how she’s been lately. It seemed everyone was like that. When she all but threw down their check and ran, Dean raised his eyebrows. “Someone’s in a hurry.”

“Everyone’s been like that lately,” she said, and they narrowed their eyes. “All my friends, my professors… They’re acting all skittish-like. I dunno, I think finals have got them all freaked out.”

“It has nothing to do with finals.”

Danielle shrieked and jumped away from the voice that had suddenly appeared beside her, knocking her head on the wall and knee under the table. She whimpered as the brothers laughed, rubbing the bruise that was already forming on her leg.

“Your friends are being controlled by demons,” Castiel stated.

“Wait, what?” she demanded, the smile fading from her face. “How is that even possible? What about my archangel?”

“The demons have captured your friends’ families and are using them to manipulate your friends into doing what they want.”

“What do they want?” she demanded.

“You’re a prophet,” Sam answered. “Everyone wants their hands on someone who can tell the future.”

“What have you been telling your friends?”

Danielle ran her hands through her thick, chocolate hair and shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing.” All of her friends, everyone who’s been acting strangely- their families were gone. Because of her. “This is all my fault,” she said. “We have to help them.”

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Sam was quick to say. “You didn’t ask for this.”

She didn’t draw much comfort from that. “We’re gonna need all your friend’s names and addresses.” Dean slid her a notepad, and she started scrawling down everyone she could think of. She paused after a second, glancing at the angel sitting at her side. Her brown eyes regarded him for a long moment, and he met her gaze evenly. “Can’t you… do something? Whoosh in there and get them all?”

“There are other things that I must attend to.”

An incredulous smile spread across her face, but she turned back to the notepad regardless. “Doesn’t it worry you that demons are indirectly coming into contact with me? I mean, they don’t have _my_ family…”

Horror, ice cold and deadly, wrapped its tendrils around her heart. Terror made her mouth go dry, her stomach twist up into itself. The pen in her hand froze, and her eyes stared unseeing at the paper.

“When was the last time you heard from them?” Dean demanded.

Her curls bounced as she shook her head. Her mouth opened and closed, gaping like a fish, trying to get words. They wouldn’t come though, or she couldn’t think of any. Of course, she couldn’t think of anything. _Stupid, stupid girl._

“Where do they live?” Sam had to repeat the question, reaching over and squeezing Danielle’s forearm before she could choke out an answer past her clenched throat. A touch from the angel was all they needed to be teleported back to her hometown in Tennessee. The boys spun around in confusion, trying to get a grip on their bearings, but Danielle bust her way into the house in a panic. She took off to the left, Sam hot on her heels, while Dean headed to the right.

He stopped in the master bedroom. “Dammit.”

“I can’t find them, but their cars are still-” Danielle cried, running into the room. Dean warned Sam, and he went to grab the woman, but it was too late. She had already seen the message written in what looked a lot like blood above the headboard of the bed: hide and seek?

A scream ripped out of the girl, blood-curdling and agonizing, before she could clamp a hand over her mouth. She caved in on herself, and Sam grabbed her before she could fall. She continued to scream into her hand, face turning red. Sam pulled her out of the room and set her down on the couch. Her small body shook with sobs.

“They’re still alive,” Sam promised. She just shook her head, rubbing the palms of her hands in her eyes.

“Can’t you find them?” Dean demanded, turning to the angel.

Castiel was as emotionless as ever, watching the woman with no expression. “No. The demons have hidden them from me.”

“Great. Guess we’re doing this the old fashion way.” Dean met Sam’s gaze before kneeling in front of Danielle. “Hey, we’re gonna find them, okay? We’ll find them.”

Lacking any other options, Danielle soon found herself cramped in the backseat of the brothers’ Impala, feet propped up on the opposite door. A book sat in her lap, but she couldn’t concentrate. Her thoughts kept flying. There had to be something she could do, something that could be done period, but she couldn’t think of much. Of course, she was new to this world of monsters and magic and demons.

Playing absently with the edges of the book, she finally closed it, tossing it on the floorboard. She tried sleeping, crossing her arms and shifting to get more comfortable. It had been hard throwing together what she wanted to keep in a suitcase. Some clothes, a couple shoes, a few books, and as much cash as she could manage. In order to start her new ‘off-the-grid’ life so that the demons couldn’t find her, she drained her bank account, tore up the lease to her apartment, but, despite Sam and Dean’s insistence, she hadn’t been able to drop out of school. There was still hope that after this she could come back, and she needed school to be there for her. If everything went the way she prayed, everything would be normal again in a week or so.

Sleep didn’t come either, so she pulled out her phone. She started sifting through angel and archangel lore, reading as much as she could. There was so much, though, and so much of it conflicted. She sat up and tapped Sam’s shoulder, holding the phone out where he could see. “How do I tell what’s real or not?”

“Mostly you learn from other hunters. Most of them keep journals.”

“That’s how y’all learned?” she questioned, looking between the two.

“Yeah.” Sam leaned forward, shuffling through the contents of his dufflebag before handing her a barely-head together journal. She recognized it from her dreams. “This is our dad’s. It’s where we learned most of our stuff.”

“Dude.” Dean snatched the book, shoving it in the glove compartment. “You don’t go around giving Dad’s stuff to just anybody!”

Danielle frowned. “Well how am I supposed to learn? Do y’all keep journals?”

“No, and you don’t,” Dean snapped.

“You can’t just keep me in the dark,” she argued. “I need to know what we’re up against.”

“You don’t need to know anything,” he said back. “We’re gonna do the heavy lifting ‘round here, okay princess? We’re taking you to our friend Bobby’s; he’s gonna watch out for you while we go looking for your family.”

She wrinkled up her nose. “Who’s Bobby?”

The car jerked to a stop. Danielle peeked between the boys, staring at the rundown house sitting in the junkyard in front of them. Dean smirked at the faint revulsion rippling across her face. “This looks like something out of a horror movie,” she whispered.

“Ah, it’s not so bad,” Sam said, and they all got of the car then.

They helped with her suitcases, not bothering to knock. She hovered in the entryway, awkwardly setting her bags down while Sam and Dean made themselves at home. She waited in the doorway to the living room as Sam tossed his brother a beer. He held on out to her to, but she shook her head. “Oh, I don’t… drink.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “You don’t… Well, there’s a first time for everything.”

She turned as someone stomped down the stairs behind her. A man in his early fifties bustled into his room, donned in a plaid shirt and frayed baseball cap. He did a double take at her, eyes narrowing in mistrust. “Uh… Who’s this?”

Danielle opened her mouth to answer, but Dean interrupted. “This is Danielle, the prophet girl.”

She shot him a close-lipped smile. “That’s me. Prophet girl.”

Dean stood, making his way over to them. “Okay, we need you to keep an eye on the girl, just not that close. Danielle, Bobby Singer. Bobby, princess. Now that that’s out of the way.” He clapped his hands together and pushed between the two to head for the door. “We’ll see you kids later. Don’t have too much fun without us.”

She smiled as he left, Sam pausing beside her. “We’ll call with news. You do the same if you see anything.”

“Will do,” she said.

The door swung shut behind them, and if Danielle thought it was awkward before, it only got worse. She shot the man a toothy smile, but he just snorted and made his way into the living room. Her smile dropped, and she cleared her throat. “Um, is there a place-?”

“Guest room upstairs.” He dropped down at the desk, squinting at a book and cracking open a beer.

“Right,” she whispered, gathering her bags and trudging up the stairs. There were only two bedrooms, and she took the one that looked less lived-in, hoping that it was actually the guest room. She tried to take her time hanging up her clothes: the longer she spent upstairs, the less time she had to spend with the stranger downstairs.

As she suspected, at first it was awkward. It seemed that Bobby wasn’t used to human contact much at all, let alone a woman as young as her. He had next to nothing that appealed to her palette - of course, there wasn’t much she liked to begin with - so they had to go the store almost right away. As they spent more time together though, his shell peeled away. It wasn’t long before she could coax smiles out of him. By the end of the first day they could hold a conversation and by the end of the tenth they had fallen into an established routine. She was eager to learn whatever she could about their world, and Bobby was glad to drown her in lore.

This was one of those times; she was reading the journal of some long-dead hunter. She wrinkled her nose at the stained pages. “What’s a… ‘rugaru’?” she asked. “This guy mentioned he found one, but he doesn’t say anything about it.”

Bobby didn’t look up from the book he was reading at his desk. “They’re monsters that start out human but start getting a craving for human flesh. One bite and they go darkside for good.”

She grimaced. “Gross.”

“Yeah,” he said with a snort. He looked up then, pointing his chin at the journal. “Whose is that?”

She flipped to the inside front cover, squinting at the messily scrawled name. It had blurred with time, but she could still mostly make it out. “Charles Tailer.”

“He works a mean werewolf case, if we’re thinking of the same Charles,” Bobby stated.

Danielle started flipping through the journal, scanning for any mention of a werewolf. One of the phones on the wall in the kitchen started to ring, and Danielle jumped to her feet.

"No, no," Bobby protested, but she beat him to the wall.

She picked the phone up, grinning at the old man's frustrated look. "Singer residence, how can I help you?"

"Bob- Danielle?"

Her smile grew wider. “Dean?”

“What are you, Bobby’s PA now?” he sneered.

“He wishes.” Bobby snatched the phone from her hand, and she made her way back over to the couch. She went back to gathering whatever information she could, scrawling down notes on the edges of her med school journals.

“You’re welcome,” Bobby sneered before hanging the phone back up.

“What’d he want?” she asked as he passed her.

He dropped down behind his desk, rubbing a hand over his face. “How to kill a monster. Typical. It’s a miracle they’re still alive.”

“Oh, stop frowning into your mustache.”

There was the sound similar to the wrinkling of paper, and Castiel appeared in the middle of the room. Danielle screamed, throwing the book on instinct and nailing the angel in the chest. He didn’t move, just frowned as the book fell at his feet. “Stop that!” she demanded.

“Stop…?” His brows furrowed, glancing at Bobby, who had a hand over his mouth to hide his amused smile before he changed the subject. “What are you doing here?”

“Being a shut-in, like you said.” She grabbed the journal, setting it carefully on the nearest table.

“Have the demons tried to contact you?”

“Not yet,” she mumbled, biting her lip. It was only a matter of time. That was the whole reason she was with Bobby after all, to keep her friends’ families safe and to make sure that she didn’t fall victim to whatever the demons threatened her with.

"Why aren't you with Sam and Dean?" Castiel asked.

"She's safer here," Bobby said. "And hello to you too."

"Are you sure the demons can't find you here?" Castiel asked.

"What am I: brain dead?" Bobby asked. "We stashed hex bags all around; we're off the grid."

"Good," the angel said, before turning his solemn gaze on the girl. He stared at her for a long pause, long enough for her to glance awkwardly at Bobby. "You had a vision last night."

The color drained from her face, and she cast a nervous glance towards Bobby that didn’t quite reach him. Her arms crossed in front of her chest, and she stared at the angel’s knee. “What about it?”

“You had a vision?” Bobby demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me, kid? Do Sam and Dean know?”

“Nobody knows,” Castiel answered for her. “What did you dream?”

“Sam and Dean fight a demon - a really strong one - and…” she trailed off, chewing on her bottom lip. Castiel prodded her forward, and she continued. “A demon helped them. A demon that Sam’s… friends with.”

“We know about Ruby.”

Danielle plowed on. “And there’s a girl. A fallen angel, but they don’t know that yet.”

“Danielle, where is she?”

She shrank back into the couch as the angel took an aggressive step towards her. She glanced at Bobby, regretting that she hadn’t told him before. She could’ve used his advice. The boys liked the girl, and she knew what the angels were planning to do with her. “Why?” she asked, desperate to think of some way out of this conversation before she had to tell him.

“Tell me.”

“In a cabin in the woods. Wisconsin.”

Before she could even blink, Castiel was gone. She let out a breath, dropping her head in her hands.

“So you gonna tell me what’s goin’ on, or do I gotta beg you for it?” Bobby asked.

“Castiel’s gonna kill her,” she said, meeting Bobby’s gaze with wide eyes. She shook her head; she did the right thing. Even if it hurt the boys, it was God’s will. “She’s a fallen angel; she has to die.”

“We gotta warn them.”

“It’s too late now,” she said. She stood, the blanket draped around her waist falling back onto the couch. “We should start cleaning.”

“Why?”

“Castiel won’t kill her right away. They’ll come here next. And do you know a woman, about this tall, sunglasses, black hair?”

Bobby’s brows furrowed. “Pamela? Yeah, why?”

“Call her. She’s going to be here too.”

With that, Danielle headed up the stairs, leaving Bobby alone downstairs. “Well,” he mumbled under his breath. “Thanks for not being cryptic about it.”

The boys showed up the next day, not long after Bobby took off. There was some kind of emergency; he'd been in such a hurry he hadn't had much time to explain.

Danielle stood in the living room, trying to not stare at the three other girls. A fallen angel, a demon, and a prophet, all in the same room. It sounded like the start of some bad joke. She'd seen Ruby in her visions and knew she could be trusted, but the tightness in her stomach still made her uncomfortable.

"The angels talk about you," Anna said after a long while, her eyes on Danielle.

Danielle's eyebrows rose, and she didn't know if that was a good or bad thing. "What do they say?"

"Mostly where you are and whether you're asleep or awake."

Danielle blanched. "That's a little creepy," she said with a nervous laugh.

They didn't have to wait much longer for Pamela to show up. She greeted everyone with a wide smile, oozing confidence as she led the group down to the panic room. Anna laid down on the cot in the room, and soon enough Anna was having a total meltdown. As soon as the lights started shattering and raining sparks, Danielle fled back to the safety of the living room.

As Anna relayed the story of how she fell from God, Danielle chewed on her bottom lip. She was torn up with guilt; the Winchesters had done nothing but take care of her, and they were looking for her family for no reason other than to help. She felt like she owed them, like she should be on their side, but then again… She was religious. She knew she couldn't claim to love God and not do what the angels tell her to.

"Alright; we're going after Anna's grace," Dean said, shrugging into his jacket. "We'll see you later."

"Wait, wait, you're just gonna leave me by myself?" Danielle demanded, jumping up.

"What, you scared of the dark?" Ruby sneered. Sam shot her a glare, and Danielle tried not to stare at them.

"Bobby left you by yourself," Dean pointed out.

"I didn't get much of a say," she said. "And it was only for, like, an hour."

"Her archangel might come in handy with the demons," Sam said.

"Fine," Dean huffed, and Danielle slipped into her tennis shoes and followed them out the door.


	3. devil may cry

_"and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the LORD and then by the will of God to us." - 2 Corinthians 8:5_

 

Danielle sat on a crate next to Sam and picked at her hangnails. Her stomach was in knots, and she felt physically sick from what she was about to do.  _ You have to _ , she reminded herself. It was the right thing to do, the righteous thing. “So… Does Castiel just show up whenever he wants to?” Danielle asked, trying her best to sound nonchalant.

Sam nodded, cleaning his gun beside her. “Pretty much.”

She glanced around the musty barn they were locked up in; finding Anna’s grace had been a bust, so for the meantime they were buckled down here and were waiting for a new plan. “Is there not a way to… call him? Or something?”

“Why, are you trying to call him?” Sam countered.

“No,” she said. Too quickly? Sam seemed to narrow his eyes, but that could have just been her imagination. “I was just wondering. Seems like it would be handy to know.”

Sam turned back to his gun. “You won’t be able to reason with him. He’s an angel, Danny.”

Inwardly sighing with relief that he misunderstood her intentions, she went along with his assumption. “I could try. I am the prophet, after all.”

Sam snorted. “You’ll just bring him right to us.”

She couldn’t think of anything else to say, or anyway to coax the answer from him without being obvious. She just sighed, defeated. “I guess you’re right.” A silence fell between them as she struggled to think of a way to contact the angel.

“How are you doing?” Sam suddenly asked. “With your family and all, I mean.”

“I’m okay.” What was she supposed to say? She felt his gaze on her face but kept her gaze fixed on her shoes. There wasn’t much she could do, which was driving her crazy, but she had to put her trust in Sam and Dean and the angels.

“You know, if you need to talk-”

“Oh God, are you two having a moment?”

Danielle jumped as Ruby strode into the room. Fear clenched in her gut, and she fell silent.

“Have you heard anything about the demons?” Sam asked.

Ruby crossed her arms. “Not like they would talk to me.”

It was quiet for a while after that; Ruby went and leaned against the wall on the other side of the barn. Danielle peeked at her out of the corners of her eyes when she thought the girl wasn’t looking.

“So is your archangel broken or what?” Ruby demanded. 

Danielle started at the sudden question, and she could only gape at the demon. “W-What?”

Ruby raised her eyebrows. “Wow, Sam, this one’s really awe-inspiring, huh? Is your archangel  _ broken _ ?”

“Ruby,” Sam warned.

“I- I don’t think they see you as a threat,” she said.

Anna entered then, thankfully saving her from having to talk anymore with the rude demon. She glanced around the room, eyebrows furrowed. “Have you seen Dean?”

“He went to go get some stuff out of his car,” Danielle answered, jumping off the crate. “I’ll take you to him.” She led the angel out of the cabin. Almost as soon as they were outside, Danielle seized her opportunity. “Hey, is there a way to call an angel. Like, to talk to them?”

“Yes,” she answered. “All you have to do is pray to them. They’ll hear you.

“Really? That’s cool.”

“Why?”

Danielle felt a pang in her heart. She was about to betray this girl, Sam and Dean too. She didn’t want to, but she had to. It was the holy thing to do. It was God’s will. “Just wondering. There he is.” She pointed at the older brother, who was leaning against the hood of his car. She headed back to the cabin.

As soon as she was out of sight, she veered off into the forest. She tried to stay close enough to where she wouldn’t get lost but far enough so that the supernatural creatures couldn’t overhear her. It was dark in the trees, and she jumped every time the branches cracked.

“Um, I guess I’m praying to you Castiel?” Danielle called. There was silence, nothing but the sound of the wind blowing. She pressed her lips together. “Should I be bowing my head or something?”

“No.” She whirled around, her heart nearly jumping out of her chest. Castiel stood next to a nearby tree, as stoic as ever. “That was sufficient.”

She sucked in a shaky breath, nodding. “Uh… I have a question. Am I… Is this the right thing? I mean, it feels pretty bad.”

“Yes,” he said, though his answer did little to comfort her. “Where is she?”

“Talking to Dean, next to his car. It’s right over-” She went to point at the vehicle, but Castiel was already gone. She sighed. “There.”

Her stomach was in tight knots as she headed back to the cabin. She was in no hurry to get back to what was waiting for her, but she didn’t want to spend another second in the dark woods. Dean called his brother’s name, and she felt nauseous. When she came out of the woods, she found all of them outside, including Castiel and another angel, Uriel.

“How’d you find us?” Dean growled.

“We had some help,” Uriel said.

Danielle must have looked guilty, or the angel had looked at her, but something had given her away. Dean’s furious gaze fell on her, and he gritted his teeth. “What the hell did you do?” he demanded. 

Anna shook her head. “She was just doing what she thought she needed to. I forgive you,” she added.

Somehow, that made it worse. She did the right thing; she  _ had _ to have. She glanced at Castiel in hopes that he would offer her some kind of assurance. The angel’s eyes however were locked on Anna. Anna stepped up to Dean and kissed him, and Danielle felt nauseous.

“It’s time to go, Anna.”

Danielle was terrified, but the pain on Dean’s face was too much. This couldn’t be right, no matter what. Sam and Dean had done nothing but be kind to her, and she had thrown it all in their faces. Even if Anna had fallen, even if she had disobeyed and rebelled, she didn’t deserve to die. She wasn’t hurting anyone, she was  _ innocent.  _ She had to fix this.

There was a gleam of blue poking out from the collar of Uriel’s shirt. She stepped forward, stretching out her arms and embracing Anna. “I’m sorry,” she said, loud enough for everyone else to hear, before whispering, “Uriel’s necklace.”

Anna pulled back, and her face was made of stone except for a small smile. Danielle couldn’t tell if she’d understood what she said, but she could only assume that she had. The only other thing she could think to do was stall, so she turned and faced the angels, holding her hands up. “Look, can we just talk for a second?”

“Silence,” Uriel snapped.

Danielle flinched and her mouth went dry. “B-But I’m a prophet,” she stammered, her confidence wavering.

“Good for you,” Uriel sneered.

She gaped at them, eyes sliding to Castiel. He was as emotionless as ever, but he had never been explicitly rude. At least, not purposefully. “W-Why are you being like this?” she demanded. She couldn’t imagine ever standing up to an angel like this, but she had to fix her mistake. “You’re supposed to-”

“Respect you?” he finished, his lips curled up in disgust. “Get out of your little fantasy. You may be a prophet, but you are still human. Still nothing.”

She was not nothing, she’d never been nothing. There was a spark of anger in her chest. “God used to speak with prophets. Have you ever spoken to God?”

Uriel’s nostrils flared. He took a sharp step towards her, and she stumbled back. 

“Uriel,” Castiel warned. The angel tensed and stopped, but his enraged eyes never moved from hers. “You will be disobeying direct orders. She is not to be harmed. Do you want to take on an archangel?”

“I’d like to take my chances.”

They all turned to see three men strolling up the road. The one in front fixed his eyes on her, looking her up and down with solid black eyes. “If you think your angel can take it, of course,” he added with a sneer.

The ground began to shake. “No,” she begged. They would die, they would  _ all die.  _ She would open her eyes and they would all be gone. She collapsed as the world gave a furious tremor. The angels and demons charged each other, desperate to kill them before the archangel showed up. A high-pitched, piercing noise reverberated around them, and the boys fell to their knees, clutching at their ears.

The noise wasn’t half as painful to Danielle, and she watched the sky seemingly split apart. A painfully bright light shone through, so bright that she had to look away. She heard screaming and only realized it was Anna after the fallen angel exploded into light. It shot out from her like a bullet, white and blinding. Her screams escalated into a pitch so high that that it all but knocked Sam and Dean unconscious. 

And, as soon as it all happened, it stopped.

Danielle fell hard on her hands, sucking in the cool night air. The darkness was so sudden that she couldn’t make out anything for a while. It took another long moment before she could realize that only her and the Winchesters were left. They were just starting to stir, and she crawled over to them.

“Sammy?” Dean groaned.

“I’m good,” he said, squinting up at the sky. “What the hell just happened?”

“Anna?” Dean sat up and looked around.

“I don’t know where she went,” Danielle said, sitting back on her haunches. “They’re all just… gone.” The boys grunted as they slowly rose to their feet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I just thought…” Nothing she said seemed right, though, so she fell silent. Ruby eventually joined them; she’d been thrown into the forest from the explosion.

None of them spoke to her as they headed back to Bobby’s house. It stayed like that for a few days. Sam was the first to come around, and Bobby was only put off with her for all of twenty minutes. But Dean… He didn’t speak to her until three days after the fact.

She thought she was going to be the first one up; sleep was harder and harder to come by, it seemed. The stress of knowing a vision was coming soon wasn’t helping. She hadn’t had one since before the cabin event, and she could feel the stirrings of a headache.

Dean sat at the kitchen table, sipping on a beer. He glanced at Danielle, who hesitated in the living room, before scowling and looking away. Her stomach clenched, and she almost went back up the stairs.

_ Ridiculous, _ she told herself. She continued into the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of tea.

“Why’d you do it?” Dean’s quiet voice broke through the silence and made her jump. She didn’t turn around, stiffening as she set the pitcher back down. 

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t  _ know _ ?” he echoed. His glare burned a hole into her back. “You sold a friend out for no reason? I don’t buy it. What did the angels offer you, huh? Your family? We’re already helping you with that.”

She shook her head. “They didn’t offer me anything.” Her reasons had felt so much more noble before. Righteous, even. But she remembered Anna and Dean’s kiss, the pain in his eyes. The angels didn’t have to go after her. She wasn’t hurting anybody. But trying to explain her reasons to Dean, the regret that she felt, it all just seemed so flimsy. It was more excuse than anything else.

“Help me understand, then. Hey, look at me.” She turned. “Why the hell did you do it?”

“I- They’re  _ angels _ , Dean. I thought… If I could trust anyone, it would be them.”

He screwed up his face, as if that was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard. “What? No, Danielle. Angels are just dicks with halos. Trust  _ us _ .”

She shook her head hopelessly, a hand rising before falling back onto the counter. “You two are strangers.”

He scoffed and shook his head. “You know that’s not true. You know more about us then most do; you’ve been dreaming about us for months.”

“That doesn’t-” She broke off. She had been, but she didn’t know they were real until just recently. And while she knew some of their greatest hits, she didn’t know  _ them.  _ She knew the choices they made, the consequences their decisions reaped. It was different. “I don’t know you, Dean.”

The legs of the chair scraped against the linoleum floor as he stood up. He walked over and held out his hand. She stared at him like he was crazy for a moment before tentatively slipping her hand in his. “Name’s Dean Winchester. I’m an Aquarius, my brother’s name is Sam, and the old guy’s Bobby Singer. We hunt monsters and are trying to stop the apocalypse.” He released her hand. “You know me now?”

He wasn’t smiling, but Danielle couldn’t stop one from spreading across her lips. “I guess.”

“Good. Now trust me when I say this:  _ we _ are the only people you are allowed to trust. Capish?”

“Capish. Does this mean we’re okay now?”

He stared at her for a second longer before nodding. “Yeah. Can’t say no to those doe eyes.”

Sure enough, she had a vision only days later. She woke up, drenched in a cold sweat, choking on a scream. The panic gripping her heart took its sweet time before fading away as she slowly came fully to her senses. With a groan, she rubbed at her eyes and glanced at the clock on the nightstand.

A figure stood against the opposite wall. A shout died in her throat as she recognized the angel, scrambling to pull the blanket up to her chin as she sat up. “What are you doing here?!” she demanded.

“You had a vision.”

She stared at him in disbelief before sighing. She switched on the lamp on the stand, squinting at the soft light. The sun hadn’t yet risen, leaving the lamp as the only source of light.

Castiel took a step forward, a warning flashing in his blue eyes. She pressed her lips together, leaning back. “You must not tell Sam and Dean.”

“But if Pam dies…”

He raised his chin, narrowed his eyes, and her protests died on her tongue. She just nodded in agreement, clutching a handful of the blanket to hide her shaking hands. “What else did you see?”

_ He’s awfully pushy, _ she thought. “You mean the angels? If you’re asking who did it-”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. I just watched them die.”

He let out a frustrated breath, and Danielle was surprised at the act; she didn’t know if she had ever seen him show any kind of emotion. Before she could string a coherent thought together, he had vanished, leaving her alone in the cold room.

After going downstairs and calling Dean to warn him and Sam against getting Pamela to help them with their later case, she dropped down on the couch. She fell into an uneasy doze, drifting off to the sounds of Bobby’s pen scrawling on paper as he researched. 

Her ringtone woke her, and she answered it groggily. Dean’s voice came through, hesitant and quiet. “Hey, princess.”

Something was wrong. Her blood ran cold as she sat up. The words tangled in her throat, tripping over one another in an attempt to come rushing out of her mouth, but none had the strength to get past her tongue. “What is it?” she finally managed to whisper.

“We found your dad.” Her eyes shut. “He’s… He’s in surgery right now but…”

“Where?” she croaked.

“Just a couple towns over. Hart. Bobby knows where it is.”

The living room started to spin. She had to remind herself to breathe. Her fingers were tight on the phone, and the panic that she had felt earlier that morning came back with a vengeance. “I’m on my way.”

It was only an hour's drive to the hospital. Danielle felt like she was in a dream, or maybe a trance. She worried for a moment that she might be going into shock but the worry quickly passed as she realized she had bigger things to worry about.

Her and Bobby walked into the hospital and found Sam and Dean sitting in the waiting room. They gave her small smiles when she entered, and she sat down next to the boys.

“How long has he been in there?”

“Not long.”

Sam sat with her as Dean and Bobby walked away to talk. She watched them for a minute, heads bowed as they whispered to one another. Bobby took his hat off and rubbed the top of his head, and she had to look away. 

When a surgeon approached later, she couldn’t move at first. She didn’t want to. The brothers stood, though, so she followed suit. The doctor shook his head. “I am so sorry. We did everything we could.”

Danielle stared. “W-When can I see him?”

“There was just too much damage. He was gone by the time he got here. There was nothing that anyone could have done.”

Her brow furrowed. “What are you… What…”

“I’m sorry,” he said again before walking away. She watched his back, listening to the high-pitched ringing in her ears. 

This is when she was supposed to fall to the floor, screaming and crying and cursing God all the rest for letting this happen. She was supposed to be inconsolable, to have to be dragged from the hospital to protect whatever shreds of dignity she had left. But she couldn’t, she didn’t. She didn’t have anything left. She felt numb. She didn’t feel anything. She just wanted to go home, get away from this God-forsaken nightmare. She wanted to go home and sleep.

“Danielle…” Sam stepped in front of her, and it took her a long moment to recognize it was him. She stared at a button on his shirt, not understanding why she it was so blurry, why it wouldn’t come into focus. But then the tears dripped down her cheeks and she understood. “I am so, so sorry.”

She just shook her head. “He… Dad… He can’t…”

“I know,” Sam said, and there was such sympathy in his eyes that it brought her out of her shock. Her throat burned, and she clenched her jaw together. She pushed her hair back, grabbing fistfuls of it at her temples. She looked at Dean, shaking his head. They were all so sad, and it wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

“I’ll take her home. Take care of the paperwork,” Dean told Sam and Bobby. He reached out, taking hold of her arm with a delicacy that was surprising in such a normally gruff-and-tough guy. He led her out of the hospital, taking her back to the house.

She sat down on the couch, wrapped a ratty old blanket around her shaking body and didn’t move. Tears stained her pale cheeks, and her knees pressed flush into her chest.

Dean sat next to her, trying to find some way to comfort her. “I lost my dad too.”

“I know,” she said, voice paper thin.

Of course she knew; she was a prophet. She’d watched it all happen, watched it all unfold right before her own eyes, as if she had been there. It was stupid of him to forget. “I know how you’re feeling.”

The girl glanced at him with eyes that seemed to slide right off. “I know you do.”

If they had just been  _ faster.  _ If they’d arrived quicker, drove faster, done  _ something _ , then he might still be alive and the usually smiley girl wouldn’t be trembling in a blanket. But no, by the time they arrived the demons had taken her sister and left, leaving her dad’s body behind as a present.

The guilt gnawed in his gut, and he leaned forward and set his jaw. “We will do everything we can to save your sister,” he said. “To hell with the devil. Your family comes first. We’ll save her; I can promise you that.”

Her eyes were so big and so brown and so scared. Her lips trembled, and she just nodded, long lashes blinking away more tears. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words broke before they could be spoken.

Castiel appeared then. Danielle didn’t even jump. “What are you doing here, Cas?”

“I came for the video.”

Danielle furrowed her brow and looked at Dean, who avoided her gaze. The demons had left a laptop too, with a video of them torturing her dad and her sister. Him and Sam had decided it would be better off if she didn’t know about it. “Trust me, kid. You don’t want to see it.”

She leaned back, fear shining in those dark eyes. She glanced at the angel. “Do you… Do you want some coffee?”

He furrowed his brow. “No.”

“I’ll start it,” she said. She rose slowly and shuffled into the kitchen, the blanket pulled tight around her shoulders.

Castiel turned his confused gaze on Dean, who stood. “Her dad just died,” he mumbled.

“I’m aware.” His befuddlement lasted a moment longer before he gave it up. “I need to examine the video the demons left.”

“What for?”

“We think these demons are agents of Lilith’s.”

“No shit,” Dean shot back.

“Where is the video, Dean?”

“Take a number.” He dropped back down in his chair, snatching up the duffelbag that held the laptop and setting it in his lap so that the angel couldn’t grab it when he wasn’t looking. There was no way in hell he was giving up their only lead. 

Danielle came back into the room then. She hovered in the archway. “I started the coffee,” she quietly announced.

“Thanks, Dan,” Dean said and smiled.

She shuffled over to him, holding out a flash drive. When he raised his eyebrows, she explained, “So both of you can have the video.”

Dean wanted to grit his teeth, but he didn’t know how she would react if he got angry. It felt too much like rolling over, but he put a lid on his anger. He downloaded the video onto the drive before tossing it to the angel, who disappeared before even saying thanks.

Danielle had sat down on the far end of the couch, her knees tucked into her chest again.

“You give up on your coffee?” he gently asked.

She didn’t answer. Her head dropped on her knees and her shoulders started to shake. He sighed and turned the brew off in the kitchen. Sam and Bobby arrived later that day, and the boys discussed funeral plans and life insurance checks as best they could while the girl cried in the living room. 


	4. rubbing salt in the wounds

_ “it is better to take trust in the LORD rather than to put confidence in man.” - Psalm 118:8 _

 

The funeral had been a quiet affair. Danielle didn’t want to have to deal with anyone, to have to worry about dodging questions. She just wanted to mourn. So Sam, Dean, and Bobby stood behind her as she laid flowers on her father’s casket, watching her slender shoulders shake as he was put to rest.

The boys tried their hardest to help; the first few days were the worst, all of them wondering how long she could lay in bed before they needed to be concerned. Eventually, she got up, and the boys kept her busy. Between researching, cleaning the house, packing salt into bullets, etc, she slowly started to get better.

When the life insurance check was delivered, she offered to split the check amongst the boys. “For everything,” she tried to say, as if that were enough of an explanation as to why she didn’t want the money. They convinced her to keep it, though the check had enough zeros to make them feel rich as kings. 

In the meantime, the brothers were obsessed with finding her sister. They both felt the heavy guilt, torn with wanting to stay at Bobby’s to help her but also not willing to see what they’d caused. If they’d just been faster, tried a little harder… But the girl was gone, as was any evidence. 

Dean’s cheek was squashed against his hand, struggling to keep his eyes open as he restarted the video. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d watched it by now. And still, there was nothing there, nothing that could tell them where she was.

The linoleum creaked, and Dean snapped the screen shut. Danielle hovered in the doorway to the kitchen, head angled away. “Is it gone?”

“Yeah,” he said. She slipped into the room and pulled a drink from the refrigerator. “What were you doing out back?”

Her cheeks were red from the sun, and she smelled like outside, that scent of fresh-cut grass and dirt and sweat. She looked better, though, and was seeming to get better with everyday that passed. “Looking at the cars.” Dean raised his eyebrows. “I was bored.”

“You? Bored? I thought this was like, Nerdvanna for you.”

She rolled her eyes, tucking her dark curls behind her ear. “Basically. But, believe it or not, reading  _ only _ hunters’ journals for weeks on end can get boring.”

“Who’da thunk?” A smile flitted across her face. “How’s your head?”

Her shoulders shrugged. Recently, she’d been suffering from mild headaches. Which, according to her, was always a warning sign that a vision was coming soon. “Getting worse. Shouldn’t be much longer.”

“Good,” he said, standing up and fishing a beer out of the refrigerator. “We could use a vision. Divine intervention and all that jazz.”

Her phone buzzed. She pulled it from her pocket, and he watched as her expression fell into terror. “What?” he demanded, and she cradled the phone to her chest on instinct. He snatched it from her regardless.

There was an email open on the screen that read,

_ Hi Danny.  _

_ I think you remember me… I’m the guy from the video. Now, I know you wanna run to Mickey and Minnie, but it would be best if you kept this to yourself. At least hear me out. _

_ You email this address with your visions, and we won’t hurt your sister. Hell, we might even let her go! (That was a joke. She’s not going anywhere.) _

_ You have thirty seconds to respond or we cut off her foot. _

_ Hugs and kisses. _

Dean quickly shot back a yes, Danielle on her tiptoes and looking over his shoulder. Another email popped up on the screen.

_ Fantastic! Glad to have you on Team Satan. Report back in three hours. _

Dean turned to the girl. “We knew this was gonna happen.”

“They can’t hurt Sophie,” she said.

“They won’t. They need her to get to you, so, no matter what, she’s gonna live through whatever they do to her.” She blanched, and Dean inwardly kicked himself. “Hey, it’s gonna be alright.”

“I could lie. Tell… tell them fake visions.”

Dean nodded. “Atta girl. I’m gonna hold onto this, okay?” He waved the phone at her, and she just nodded.

Sam came in then, hesitating for just a fraction of a second before continuing to one of the cupboards. Dean looked at his shoes and crossed his arms. Sam glanced at the two of them. Pausing, he asked, “Is everything good?”

“Yep.” Dean left. Sam sighed, hanging his head.

_ Stay out of it, _ Danielle told herself. “You can’t blame yourself,” she said. She knew all about the siren and had, unfortunately, been unable to shake the harsh words the brothers had shared. “It was the monster.”

“Yeah,” he said, the corners of his lips pulling into a harsh smile as he looked up into the cabinet. “That’s what I keep trying to tell him too, like it’ll help. He’s still pissed.”

“He’ll come around.” 

The boys left not long after that, heading to Cheyenne to meet Ruby, who had a lead on the apocalypse front. Bobby and Danielle were left behind to pour over the books, hoping to find something that would tell them where Sophie was.

The lead, unsurprisingly, turned out to be bust, and the boys headed back after handling a poltergeist in Jackson that was on their way. Danielle’s head hurt something awful, and her days were peppered with moments when the pain would become so intense that she couldn’t do anything but sit and ride it out.

Sam and Dean came back during one of those very moments. She was clutching her head on the couch, bent over her knees when the boys burst through the door. “Hope y’all’re hungry, ‘cause we got food,” Dean announced.

Bobby instantly shushed them, and they noticed the blinds drawn shut, the dim lights, and the girl flinching at every noise on the couch. Dean whispered a sorry, raising his eyebrows. He took his meal and sprawled out across the rest of the couch, leaving Sam to pull a kitchen chair into the living room.

Dean dropped a box of chicken in her lap. “How you feelin’, princess?” he asked.

It was her turn to shush him. Every movement was stiff and slow as she started eating her dinner. “I think my head’s going to explode.”

“Yeah, I had a hangover like that once. Bobby, pass me a beer would you?” A phone buzzed, and he frowned as he dug into his coat’s pockets to pull out Danielle’s phone. He flashed it to her with a  _ look-what-I’ve-got  _ smile. “Phone’s been going off nearly nonstop, Miss Popularity. I didn’t realize you had so many friends. And, gotta ask- who’s Brian?”

She snorted, as did Sam, taking her phone back. “Leave her stuff alone,” Bobby said.

“Don’t be such a grump, old man,” Dean shot back.

Danielle’s expression changed, and Sam watched as fear contorted her features. “What is it?”

For a moment, all she could do was gape at the screen. Finally, she cleared her throat and read, “Doll face, we want you to be our very own double agent. How exciting! You’re going to set up a trap. The Winchesters’ guard dog is starting to grate on our supervisors’ nerves, what with the halo and righteous-wrath and all. You get it, don’t you  **church girl** ? We’re not gonna  _ kill  _ him just… indispose him, for the time being. And if you manage to bring the Winchesters, gold star! Tell them you had a vision and someone’s going to die, or something along those lines. Well- I’m sure you don’t need my help. You did get into medical school, after all. Xoxo.”

“What? They think they’re just gonna nuke Cas? Dude’s an angel!” Dean exclaimed.

Bobby and Sam both groaned, the latter brushing his hair back. “This isn’t good,” Sam said.

“We have to,” Danielle said, chocolate eyes wide. “But we can’t, Cas-”

“Are they sayin’ they know how to ice angels? Does this mean they’re the ones who’ve been raising hell?” Bobby demanded.

They all looked to her, and she just shook her head, bewildered. “I don’t know!”

Dean put his food aside, running a hand over his head. “Alright, alright. What if we go along with it?”

“You really think Cas is gonna agree to that?”

“Look Sam, it’s all we got. If we don’t-”

“They hurt Sophie. Yeah, I get it, I’m just saying-”

“Cas will want in,” Danielle said. “If these guys really are the ones killing angels, he’ll want to deal with them.”

“And if things get hairy?” Sam asked.

“We got a tickin’ superhero time bomb right here,” Bobby said, angling his glass towards the prophet. Worry danced across her face, but she nodded, waiting for Dean to agree before emailing back a quick response.

He spread his hands and bowed his hands. “Yo Castiel, I lay my head to sleep and pray my soul to keep or whatever.”

Castiel appeared before Dean was even done speaking. “Dean-”

“Fantastic,” Danielle read. She did a double take to the angel, who looked at her, confused, and flashed him an apologetic smile. “Get them to meet us at 1178 Slater Street, Monroe, Michigan at eight tonight. And make sure it’s just him and/or them. I’d hate to have an archangel crash the party. Adios.”

“What is it?” Castiel asked, narrowing his eyes at Dean.

“Princess here got an email from the demons holding her sister. Looks like you’re at the top of their to-do list.”

“What?” His eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“The demons want Danny to set up a trap- to catch you,” Sam explained. “They might be the ones killing angels, we don’t know.”

Castiel raised a hand. “What did this…  _ email  _ say, exactly?”

Danielle reread it, and Castiel had vanished by the time she looked up. “Typical,” Dean muttered as Sam and Bobby huffed. They became more and more anxious as the time neared eight and there was still no sign from the angel. Bobby was the only one unaffected as the others steadily got worse. Finally, at 7:55, Castiel reappeared.

He put his hand on Danielle’s shoulder, and the world shifted and spun out of control, the ground falling out from under her feet only to slam back up underneath her. She might have fallen, had she not leaned against Castiel.

Though her vision was a whirlwind, she could see the dark parking lot, feel the rain that resembled mist more than anything settle in her hair, on her sleeves. “What- Where’s Sam and-?”

He tugged on her, and they ducked behind a car. She looked through the window at the nondescript building; there didn’t seem to be anyone, outside or inside. Of course, she didn’t exactly know what to look for.

“Stay here,” he demanded.

She reached out and grabbed a fistful of his sleeve before he could get away. Immediately, she cringed, releasing. “Wait, just wait,” she hissed. “Where is Sam and Dean? Why did you just bring me?”

“I can’t bring them in harm’s way.”

She gaped. “They’re  _ hunters, _ I’m just- I just-”

“Stay here.”

“Castiel,” she said. He paused, facing her again. “When am I-? I mean, when do I know to come in?”

“You’ll know.”

He started leaving again, and she hissed his name. This time he gritted his teeth as he turned back to face her. “Uh, good luck.”

She didn’t stop him from leaving that time, instead watching his feet underneath the car. He paused outside the door for a moment before going inside. She held her breath while he was out of sight, watching the building for any sign.

She’ll  _ know _ when to come in? What, like she was going to just  _ feel _ it? She shuffled her feet, her legs starting to cramp up while she waited outside the car. After a moment, she realized that the tingling she felt in her thigh was actually due to her phone buzzing in her pocket. She had five missed calls and about a dozen text messages from all three of them. She shot them back a quick ‘I’m fine’ before there was an explosion inside the building.

Okay, maybe not an  _ explosion _ -explosion, but light shone out from inside, turning the parking lot bright as day for a moment as the ground trembled. It surprised Danielle enough to knock her off balance. She gave herself a second to breathe, to try and calm her racing heart as she crouched on the wet pavement, before she pushed up and ran towards the building.

By the time she entered, though, Castiel was headed out. Blood seeped from a cut in his temple, but otherwise he seemed fine. The more alarming thing, however, was the demon slung over his shoulder.

“What- Are you- Is that-”

He ignored her flabbergasted stuttering, laying a hand on her shoulder and taking them back to Bobby’s house.

Instantly, Dean demanded, “What the hell man? What were you thinking?”

Castiel went to lay the unconscious demon on the couch, but Bobby quickly stopped him with a string of heated threats, promising to cut off various parts of the angel if he got blood all over his furniture. Instead, they followed him down to the panic room, where he set the demon in a chair and Sam went to work tying it down.

“Hey, answer me,” Dean said, grabbing a fistful of Castiel’s trenchcoat and pulling him.

The look Castiel gave him in return chilled Danielle to the bone, and she quickly looked away to catch her breath. Even Dean’s protests sputtered out for a moment. “She’s just a kid, what were you thinkin’ bringing her into the line of fire?”

“An archangel is sworn to protect her with his life,” he said in return. “She was never in any danger and never will be.”

“And what about Hefty over here?” Sam asked, nodding his head toward the demon who was inhabiting a rather large man.

Castiel looked again at Dean. “We need you to interrogate it.”

“No.” His answer was sharp and fast, voice gritty like stone.  _ He can’t, _ Danielle thought.  _ It’ll break him apart.  _ She knew what he’d done in Hell, had watched him confess to Sam the terrible things the demon’s made him do.  _ If he does this…  _

“We need you to see if he knows anything, about Lilith, about the next seals- anything.”

“He could know where her sister is,” Sam said.

“Now, hold up just a minute,” Bobby interrupted, shooting Sam a scowl. “There’s no reason to hop to anything. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon. And you might not even need to; he doesn’t look all that tough. I can crack him.”

Dean looked doubtful, but it was enough for Castiel, who vanished. Her and Dean sat in the living room in tense silence, Danielle jumping every time an agonized scream shot through the house.  _ For Sophie, _ she told herself, over and over, as she hunched over the hunter’s journal she was reading. Dean could have been made of stone; he moved only to bring the beer to his mouth and back down to his lap, like a robot. For once, he looked old, jaded, like all those years spent on the job and he’d finally reached his breaking point.

“Have you… Have you ever thought about taking a break?”

He snorted. “The world would fall to pieces.”

She bit her lip. Even after watching them for years, she still wasn’t sure how to help. “What you did in Hell, that wasn’t-”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said and stormed out of the house. Danielle watched the door swing shut behind him, her stomach a tight knot. For a second she thought about following him but quickly dashed the thought from her mind.

An hour or so later, and Bobby and Sam came up the stairs, wiping the blood off their hands with towels. “She’s in Missouri,” Sam said, and Danielle couldn’t stop the relieved smile.  _ Finally.  _

They were in Missouri by that night, taking the time only to swing by a motel and drop off their stuff and Danielle before Sam, Dean, and Bobby headed to the address. Danielle wanted to go, but they convinced her to stay. If her sister was still there, then she’d be neck-deep in demons, and they didn’t need to worry about saving her and Sophie.

She watched the Office while they were gone, fidgeting and staring more at her phone than the T.V. screen. When Bobby finally called to check in, she thought her heart might implode.

“Anything?”

“Sorry, kid,” Bobby said and the disappointment felt akin to a punch in the gut. With a breath, all her hope left, and she sagged on the bed. “But they were definitely here. Area’s lighting up with demon signs. We’re gonna look around town and see if they relocated.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Keep your chin up. And get some rest.”

She tried to keep watching T.V., but the Office’s cheerfulness was just annoying. She shut it off, laying in bed and hoping to fall asleep. At least asleep she didn’t have to worry about anything. Besides, her head felt like it was on fire. She would have a vision soon, and that was something they definitely needed.

Right when she was about to doze off, however, Sam and Bobby busted into the room. Sam’s hair was disheveled, eyes hard with an almost dangerous light glinting in them. The door slammed shut behind them, making Danielle cringe. “Where’s Dean?”

“Angels took him.”

“What?” She sat up. “Where?”

“If I knew where, do you think I’d be here?” he spat. She shrank back, and Bobby shot him a stern look. Sam yanked a hand through his hair, fishing a tourist’s brochure from his back pocket and unfurling the map on a table. After a moment of staring at it, he shook his head and shouted a curse, banging a fist on the table. “He could be anywhere.”

“Please don’t yell,” Danielle whispered. Her head was throbbing, near splitting at the seams, and she knew she had to sleep soon. This was as worse as the pain had ever gotten, and she didn’t want to know what would happen if she put off the vision much longer. 

Sam looked at her, the stiffness in his shoulder melting away as an idea struck him. “Go to sleep! Your vision’ll tell us where he is.”

“There’s no guaranteeing that she’ll have one, though,” Bobby said.

“I’ll have one.” The hammer pounding against her skull promised that. She kicked off her shoes and climbed over the blankets, turning onto her side. It only took a moment before she opened her eyes again and looked at the boys. “I can’t sleep with y’all staring.”

They nodded, grabbing jackets and phones and keys before bustling out, leaving the girl to her dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all. sorry this took so long to update. i've been busy with school and i'm writing something else currently but i'm gonna try to spread my time between the two more evenly! thanks for reading (~:


	5. little miss bible girl

 

_"blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" - Matthew 5:4  
_

 

It took hours for Danielle to have her vision. Sam and Bobby waited outside the room, not wanting to risk waking her and disturbing her dream. Regardless, Sam was too restless to keep still. He paced, fiddling with his hands, his hair, his jacket. He would peek in the room every so often, as if to make sure she was still there, that she was still sleeping.

Sam was just about to call Ruby - surely the demon could do something to help - when a shout came from inside the room. They found Danielle shuddering, face hidden in her palms and by a curtain of thick brown hair.

“Danny?” Sam ran to her, touching her side. “Danny, what’d you see?”

Her breaths came quick and heavy, and her hands shook as she clambered from the bed. She staggered, knees too weak to support her weight, and might have fallen if Sam hadn’t caught her.

“What happened, kid?” Bobby asked.

She met his gaze, chocolate eyes wide with fear as she squeezed Sam’s hand. For a moment, words abandoned her, and she could only shake her head the old man. Sam gave her a small shake. “Is Dean okay?”

“Okay might be a bit of an overstatement,” she said, her voice paper thin. “But he’ll live. If we hurry.”

They did. The abandoned factory they had Dean holed up in was just on the other side of the city, and the thirty minute drive was shortened to just fifteen with Sam behind the wheel. The Impala was barely in park before Sam bowled out, sprinting into the building.

Danielle started to go in, but Bobby stopped her. “You need me!” she tried.

He shook his head. “The last thing we need is an archangel.” He ran in as well, leaving Danielle pacing next to the car. She twisted her fingers in her hair, feeling nauseous and lightheaded and panicky all at the same time.

Bobby came out minutes later, carefully setting an unconscious Dean on the ground. Danielle laid him out, wadding up leftover napkins tucked into the passenger side door and pressing them against his temple. She did her best to wipe up the blood but there was _so much._

Sam sprinted out and helped them slide Dean into the backseat. Danielle set his head in her lap, and his eyelashes fluttered every so often. “You’ll be okay,” she promised, holding the napkins against the cuts across his face.

He was admitted to the ICU as soon as they arrived at the hospital, and only an hour after were they allowed in the room. Danielle sat in the chair in the corner, bouncing her leg and staring at Dean. He was a scary sight: he was propped upright in bed, half of his head wrapped up in bandages and the other half strapped into some menacing device. A tube helped his breathing, and he was hooked up to so many machines that Danielle got lost in all the wires.

Sam sat at his side, head in his hands. He met her gaze and flashed a soft smile, and it took everything in her to smile back at him. She was scared. Sam had managed to kill Alistair, with nothing but a hand, where Castiel - an _angel_ \- hadn’t even been able to stand against him. It was disconcerting and terrifying and wrong, and it worried her to know how strong he was.

She wanted to tell Bobby, who was drifting in and out of sleep in the chair on the other side of Dean’s bed, but she didn’t know what she could tell him. _Hey, Bobby, one of the kids you helped raise and love as one of your own is turning into a monster I think! Isn’t that a shame._ Somehow, she knew that wouldn’t go over very well.

And then there was Uriel. Castiel had asked her before who was killing angels and she hadn’t known; she wished she could go back to that. An angel killing other angels? It was blasphemous, sacrilegious to the fullest extent, and she feared that at any moment he would appear and to strike her down simply for knowing.

He wasn’t only killing angels, oh no. She didn’t know if that would be better or worse if that was all he was doing. He was _recruiting_ others to help the _demons_ raise Lucifer. Satan. Angels turning against their own kin. Angels, the most devout creatures on the planet, the holy ones, the pure ones, and not even they could resist the devil’s charms.

She wanted to tell the boys, knew that she needed to, but saying the words aloud made them targets. And, quite frankly, she hadn’t checked up on her archangel’s Terms and Conditions and didn’t want to risk him not coming down because he doesn’t fight other angels.

So, she held her tongue, waiting with the rest of them for Dean to wake up.

Before he could, Sam excused himself to go get some food. Danielle thought Bobby might go with him, but the old man was completely asleep by then, snoring softly in his chair. Not long after he left, Castiel appeared, taking his spot. Danielle jumped in surprise as her heart skip a beat. The angel stared at the ground, solemn.

“It was Uriel.”

“Is he…”

“Yes.” She sighed in relief, letting her head hang for a moment. “Did you know?”

He raised his gaze then, blue eyes dark. She expected grief, or anger, but he was as hard to read as always. The only thing that could give away any emotion was his furrowed brow, but his eyebrows were nearly constantly pinched down like that.

“No. I’m sorry, Cas.”

“As am I,” was all he said back. He leaned against the back of the seat. For a while, Danielle watched him, expecting him to leave. Instead, he stayed.

“Can you do anything?” she asked, breaking the silence.

He sighed. “No. It was Uriel, he-”

“I saw what happened.”

“Have you seen anything else?”

She shook her head, picking at her nails. “I only watched ‘til Sam killed Alistair.”

Castiel’s gaze snapped to hers with such urgency that for a moment she was scared she’d said too much. “His powers continue to grow. Whatever he is doing, it’s evil.”

“Is it really evil if he’s using them for good?”

His brow furrowed. “We don’t know where his powers are originating from. It’s not from Heaven, and it’s not Heaven’s will. If all of Heaven opposes it, how can it be good?”

He didn’t even sound sure of himself. They shared a long gaze, and she could see the doubt she felt mirrored in his eyes as well. He looked away.

“Is it true? Did he break the first seal?”

Castiel paused. “Yes.”

“That’s gonna crush him,” she told the angel.

“Perhaps. But he’s strong.”

Danielle’s curls twisted as she shook her head. “A person can only take so much, even him.”

“Then we have to help him.”

Her mouth went dry. “Help him? Help him get over it?”

“The righteous man that begins it is the only one who can end it,” he recited, meeting her gaze. “He’s our only hope. We must make sure he can do it.”

_That’s too much,_ she thought. It was way too much. How could one person be so unlucky? She looked at Dean, lying broken and bruised and bleeding in the hospital bed, more machine than human, and her heart cracked. He’d already been through enough, and now the fate of humanity rested on his shoulders. He was no Atlas; he couldn’t bear the weight.

“We’ll help him,” Castiel said, as if reading her mind.

Between all of them, they just might be able to do it. She nodded before leaving them alone to go see if Sam needed any help.

It took Dean days to get back to normal, both physically and mentally. When they first brought him back to Bobby’s house, he couldn’t even pretend like he was alright. He was all smart remarks and short answers, constantly trying to get up and go. After a little while, though, he got better, until eventually he was back to sweeping his emotions under a rug of sarcastic retorts and whiskey.

It didn’t take long before the brothers were back on the road, chasing down leads and keeping seals from being broken. And it didn’t take long before Danielle’s head started to ache, then throb, then feel like it was coming apart at the seams.

The boys could always tell how bad it was based on the sounds she made: if she was quiet, then it was normally pretty okay. If she shouted or, worse, screamed, then they knew they had their work cut out for them.

This time, however, the prophet didn’t make a sound. She went upstairs to dream around ten that morning, and when a few hours had passed and she still hadn’t come down, they started to get a little nervous. They peeked into the room and found a pale Danielle sitting upright in bed. One hand clutched the blankets, the other laid in her lap. Her hair looked black in the dim lighting, framing her tear-stained cheeks like a curtain.

“Danny?” Dean crouched beside her, reaching out and touching her shoulder and giving her a little shake. “Are you good? What did you see?”

The girl’s doe eyes slowly drifted to his, glazed over and distant. They never really found Dean’s, instead getting lost somewhere along the way. He repeated his question, desperate, squeezing her shoulder.

“My… My sister,” she whispered. Around the room, there was a collective sigh of relief: she hadn’t seen them. But it was quickly followed with another, different rush of fear.

“What’d you see, kid?” Bobby asked.

She gave a small shake of her head, squeezing her eyes shut. “They hurt her is all. I’m sorry, it’s just hard-”

“Hey, you don’t need to apologize,” Sam said from the doorway.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “But she’s alright? I mean, she’s still kicking?”

Danielle nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, she’s good.”

Dean hit her shoulder, gently, and smiled. “Good. You hungry? I can make a fried chicken run.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

She smiled with him, and he stood. “Sam?”

The two of them headed out, leaving her and Bobby alone. The old man stood near the bed and just watched her for a minute. “You gonna be okay?”

“I will be,” she said, only able to meet his gaze for a second.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll be just downstairs if you need me.”

A pause. “Okay.”

“Okay.” He went downstairs, and Danielle held her breath, listening as he got something out of the fridge. When the living room T.V. clicked on, she slipped out of bed.

If she didn’t think about it, it wasn’t that bad. But how could she not? After what she’d seen, after what was going to happen to her and her sister…

No. She pushed the thoughts from her mind, giving herself a moment to sag against the wall and slow down her breathing. Once she had calmed as much as she could, she went back to dressing. Her shaking fingers fumbled over the button on her jeans, and she barely managed to tie the laces on her tennis shoes.

She pulled her keys out of the bag she’d stuffed in the closet. Trying to act normal and trying not to lose it anymore than she already had, she walked down the stairs.

“Where you goin’?” Bobby asked from the couch.

“Just wanted some air,” she said, giving him the best smile she could muster. It must have been weak, because he only scowled. She didn’t allow him any time to question her, though, slipping out the front door.

As soon as she was outside, she sprinted to her car. Her hands were shaking so badly that she dropped her keys twice before managing to start the engine. She peeled out of the Junkyard, dirt rising behind her like a cloud. In her rearview mirror, she watched Bobby run out onto the porch, mouth opened as if he was yelling something.

Then she was gone.

_I had to_ , she told herself, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. If she had told them, they would have wanted to come, to help. But she couldn’t have that. They couldn’t _all_ die, especially not them. All they had ever done was help her, and they were good people. Danielle didn’t want to die either, but who was she to question the will of God?

It wasn’t long before her phone was ringing. She didn’t answer the first call, or the second, but by the third she was breathing so fast and the road had blurred to where she couldn’t see that she had to pull over. She hunched over the steering wheel, hand on her hammering heart, sucking in as much air as she possibly could. She answered the phone right before it went to voicemail.

“Danny?” Dean’s voice raged through the receiver. “What the hell’s going on? Where are you?”

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. She rolled down a window, letting the cool air into the stifling car. She turned the air on full blast. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” It was Sam this time. “What aren’t you telling us?”

“It’s better this way. Y’all- Y’all will just get hurt.”

“Get hurt? What are you talking about?”

She shook her head, grabbing fistfuls of her hair and pulling. There were so many thoughts, so many things running through her mind, and oh, the _terror._ It choked her, snaking its way through her entire body, squeezing its icy hand around her heart until she thought she might die right then and there.

“Listen, just come back, okay?” Dean pleaded. “Come back, and we can talk this through. Your visions don’t have come true, remember?”

“They do,” she said, banging her palm on the steering wheel in time with her pounding heart. “They do, they always do, they always-”

“We just wanna help.”

“Danny, you need us,” Sam said. “You won’t make it there on your own. You’re too scared.”

“I have to.”

“You _can’t._ We can help you get there, or at least meet you there. You’re going to get your sister, right? The place is gonna be crawling with demons. You think you’ll just stroll right in? You’re gonna get her killed.”

She knew that already. “I have to, I have-”

“Dammit, Danielle, you _don’t,_ ” Dean argued. “Just tell us where you are and we’ll come get you.”

She was crying so hard she could barely speak. She didn’t want to die, didn’t want her sister to die. This vision was too much, it was too much for anyone to ask for. She wasn’t strong or brave or a hero; she was just a kid in med school who was in way over her head.

She told them everything, about the demons and her sister and the archangel. By the time she finished, she could almost hear Dean shaking his head. “You can’t go.”

“No, _you_ can’t go,” she said. “This is my fight.”

“This is _our_ fight that you keep getting dragged in,” he snapped right back. “You’re not going, and that’s final.”

“Stop!” she pleaded. “Stop trying to fix everything. You can’t, and if this is what I’m supposed to do then I have to do it.”

Dean laughed. “That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s God’s will!”

“So you’re telling me, that after all this, God wants you to just die? He gave you all these powers just so you could have them for what, a month? Two? And then that’s it, lights out. That doesn’t make any sense, Dan, and you know it.”

“We’re only human,” she said, and though her words shook, she was determined. She _would_ see this out. “We can’t pretend to know what God wants.”

“Dammit!” Dean’s voice was far away, like he’d walked away from the phone, but she could still hear the rage in it.

“Just tell us where we can find you,” Sam said. “At least tell us that much.”

She hesitated. After a moment, she told them where she was headed. There wouldn’t be much of anything left, of course, but at least they could have that closure. At least she wouldn’t just disappear.

“Thank y’all. For everything. I mean it.”

“Danielle,” Dean said, his voice low and full of warning. “Don’t-”

She hung up and took off down the road once again. Though her sister was all the way across the state line, the trip felt excruciatingly short. When she pulled up on the farm, she stared at the barn for a long moment. Her heart felt like it was going to give out, and though she was terrified, she could feel a clammy sort of calm slowly taking over. She clung to it, happy to feel anything but the fear.

If there were demons outside, they weren’t doing a very good job. She made it all the way to the doors, waiting for something to happen, someone to jump out at her, but there was nothing. When she opened one of the big doors, she saw two figures, sitting on overturned crates in the middle.

A beer bottle started to rattle on top of a wood palette. The two figures looked up, eyes going wide as both of them cursed and clambered to their feet.

“What the hell is she doing here?” one demanded, but Danielle only had eyes for the other. It was Sophie, fine and completely intact, except for the black eyes she wore. “Why didn’t the guards stop her?”

The ground began to tremble, and the faint light flooding through the dark windows illuminated the Enochian wards painted all over the walls.

“Oh _shit,_ ” the creature in Sophie whispered.

“Get out of her,” Danielle said, her voice barely audible. For a second, she was filled with hope. If she could just get the demons to leave, then the archangel would leave them alone and she could get Sophie back. “If you stay here you’re gonna die.”

The other demon held a knife to the girl’s throat. “Call off your attack dog,” he said, and Danielle felt her heart sink all the way to the ground.

She shook her head. “I- I don’t know how,” she breathed hollowly. The light was getting brighter, shining through the cracks in the planks of wood. The ground was shaking ferociously, and Danielle could hear whispering in the back of her mind.

The demon panicked. His eyes flickered all over the barn before Sophie twisted free. It all happened so fast, was happening, and everything was shaking and rattling and the light was so bright that Danielle could hardly see and any second the ang-

Agony exploded in her stomach. It _burned,_ hot like a furnace, the fire spreading throughout her body as she groaned. Sophie sneered as she twisted the blade in her sister’s stomach. “Gotta protect the family,” she whispered, grinning. “I’m sure you understand.”

Air whooshed past her ears, and the ground rose up to meet her. The grass was soft, and everything was getting blurry, and all of a sudden the light didn’t seem so harsh. Far, far away, she thought she could hear screaming, but she didn’t know… She couldn’t remember…

This wasn’t so bad. She had been so scared, and she couldn’t recall why. This was easy. It was almost comfortable. The pain in her stomach had even started to go away.

For a split second, it was _hot._ Her whole body burned, and then it was black.

 

* * *

 

Her world was dark. Even with her eyes open, she couldn’t see anything. Fear gripped her heart and, for a moment, she was too scared to move. But the longer she stayed put, the more she could see. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she made out a ceiling.

She pulled the blankets up to her chin, shivering in the sudden cold. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping she could go back to sleep.

When it all came rushing back, she jerked upright. Her hand went down to her gut, expecting to feel the warm, sticky blood pooling under her fingers, but there was nothing. Confused, she pulled up her shirt, feeling her stomach twist at the lack of a stab wound.

She was in a bed pushed into the corner of a room. A window right beside her was the only source of light, and when she glanced out, she saw a city sprawled out under her. The lights twinkled brightly in the night, though it was mostly deserted. _Everyone must be sleeping._

She climbed out of the bed, folding her arms across her chest. “Dean?” she called. Had they managed to grab her before she could die? Or maybe Cas had, or the archangel, and they had taken her back to the boys? If they did, she didn’t recognize the room.

It was about as big as Bobby’s downstairs, with a small round table sitting in front of the kitchenette area. There was a deck of playing cards on top, with two chairs neatly pulled up on opposite sides. The kitchen was dark, nestled between a bathroom and the hallway leading to the door.

To her right, a white couch faced the T.V., resting on top of a dresser pushed against the far wall. A dark blue blanket was thrown across the back of the couch, and as she picked it up, she realized that it was her favorite blanket at Bobby’s house. It was starting to fray at the seams, parts of it being so thin and threadbare that it was see through. Where was she?

Three pictures decorated the dresser next to the television. There was a picture of Dean, dressed in a nice button-up shirt, arm around the waist of a woman with black hair. They were both grinning, Dean’s other hand resting on the boy’s shoulder in front of him.

The next picture was of the three of them. They were outside, somewhere that looked suspiciously like the Junkyard. Danielle was on the end, arms wrapped around Dean’s waist as she beamed at the camera. Dean was in the middle, fixing the camera with a steady stare. Though he wasn’t smiling, he seemed to be fighting one; the corners of his lips were starting to twist up. Sam was on the other side, an arm laying across Dean’s shoulders and smiling as well. They all seemed so happy.

Her and _Castiel_ were in the next one. She didn’t have the same goofy grin from the other picture, instead sporting a real, genuine smile. An arm was wrapped around Castiel’s back, and she was pressed against his side.

And Cas… He was staring- no, _gazing_ at her, his blue eyes hooded as he looked down at her. He was _smiling_ , and Danielle felt her breath hitch. He stared at her in a way that made all the blood rush to her head, in a way she would never have thought him capable of. It almost looked like…

No. It wasn’t possible. No way.

But how could she deny it? There was so much tenderness, so much love shining in his eyes, that Danielle didn’t know how it could be anything else. Her heart swelled, and she quickly looked away from the picture.

She had never taken any of them, certainly not the last one. Where was she? Whose apartment was she in? Where was everyone?

“Hello?” Danielle called hesitantly into the darkness.

As the silence pressed down on her, she got the overwhelming feeling that something was _not right._ She furrowed her brow, her back touching the dresser behind her as she stared out at the room, trying to put a finger on it. It was almost like… like she was missing or forgetting something. And it was enough to make her want to cry. It was something so important, and she couldn’t even remember.

Her hands shaking, she slowly crept towards the door. “Dean? Sophie?” Nothing. She tried to the doorknob, but it didn’t budge. It was locked on the outside. For a second, panic choked her, but it was quickly pushed away, drowned in that horrible aching loneliness. She pressed her forehead against the door.

“Cas?” He would hear her, no matter where she was. All she had to do was call to him. That was in his job description. “Cas? C- Castiel? What’s _happening?_ ”

“You’re dead.”

Danielle whirled around. A man was sitting on the couch, sprawled out as if he owned the place. A wide, cocky smirk graced his features, and his whole postured reeked of arrogance.

“W- What do you mean?”

“I mean, dead,” he said. “Dead-as-a-doornail. Your organs are shutting down, your body is slowly rotting somewhere, etc. I won’t bore you with all the details. You were the med student after all, not me.”

So, what, she was in heaven? That wasn’t possible. Where were the angels? Where were all the souls, all the hands in the air, worshiping and singing at the top of their lungs? Where was _God_?

“This is… Is this heaven?”

And why did she feel so awful? Why was there such a lonely, hungry ache threatening to pull her chest apart, an emptiness threatening to crush her? Heaven was supposed to be painless, a castle in the clouds. Not some apartment room with cards and photographs that had never been taken before.

“Oh, don’t sound so disappointed.” He waved his hand in the air. “Well, then again, this is kind of drab. And… _lonely_.”

He grinned at her, and something twisted. How did he know what she was feeling? Did he know how desperate she felt, how terrible it was to have so much loneliness weighing on her chest? “Who are you? You’re not…”

“God?” he asked, snorting a laugh. “No, but thanks for the compliment. I am a little surprised you don’t know me, little miss Bible girl. Granted, this job normally falls to my more… _heroic_ brothers. I just happened to be in the neighborhood, and when I heard the Winchester boys were involved…” He grinned, slow and wicked. “I couldn’t resist. The name’s Gabriel.”

“G- Gabriel? Like… _the_ Gabriel?”

“In the flesh.” He stood and waved his hand as he ducked into a dorky bow. “I’ll sign an autograph later. Right now, we gotta get you back.”

“Back where?”

“To Earth, duh. You’re not finished.”

“What? How am I not done? I’m _dead_.”

“And in a few minutes, you won’t be,” he shot back. “Now come on, let’s go. If we wait too long there won’t be a body to go back to.”

Her head was spinning. None of this felt real. “You can… I’ll be…”

“Alive? Yes, it’s an angel thing.” He winked. “Ready, sweetheart?”

“What about my family? What a- about Sophie?”

Gabriel scowled. “What about her?”

“You have to bring her back.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. People _die._ It’s the natural order. You have work to do. So chop-chop, let’s get to it!”

He couldn’t be Gabriel. The thing in front of her could not be him. He was about as far from Castiel and the other angels as he could get; the rest were like marble statues, not mocking douchebags.

“I’m not leaving without her.”

“You don’t have a choice,” he said with a smile. Before she could move, he had a hand on her arm.

Danielle’s eyes snapped open, and she sucked in a large, sputtering breath. All she breathed in, however, was smoke. It filled her lungs, and she rolled onto her side, coughing. The thick, black smoke clouded her vision, but she could definitely see the bright flames all around her. The heat seared her skin, closing in on her, and she rolled onto her stomach. She covered her mouth with the collar of her shirt, struggling to breathe as she stared in horror at the wreckage.

It looked like a bomb had gone off. Metal and wood and various machine parts were scattered everywhere; the ceiling was completely gone. The fire was consuming everything in its sight.

She was back at school, back in the lab, crawling in the ashes and looking for Addison.

Except this time, she was looking for Sophie. She pushed away palettes and sifted through hay bales, trying to find something, _anything._ Everything was hot to the touch, and the smoke brought tears to her eyes.

The body was tucked under what was left of a tractor. An arm poked out, but the rest was crushed underneath. Blood pooled into the dirt around it. She tried to push the metal away, but it wouldn’t budge. Desperate, hoping against hope, she latched her shaking fingers onto the thin wrist. She clung on as tight as she could, but there was nothing- no pulse, no movement. Despite the heat threatening to choke her, the body was already turning cold.

“Danielle.”

Castiel was walking through the fire, unaffected by it all. She shook her head, clawing at the dirt, trying to get to her sister. There was no way, she couldn’t be- not after everything that had happened, not after looking for her for so long. There had to be something left.

“Come with me.”

“No,” she gasped before she sputtered. She tried to twist free when he took her arm, but his grip was as hard as iron. “ _No_ , Sophie-”

“It’s too late.”

There was a small explosion on the other end of the building. The shock wave knocked Danielle over, dangling from Castiel’s grip. The flames flared up, and something was roaring in the background. He pulled her up, but her legs only gave out. He grabbed her under the knees, picking her up and carrying her out of the burning barn.

When he set her down next to Sam and Dean, she stumbled back towards the building. She had to get Sophie, she had to-

“Hold up,” Dean said, but Danielle ignored him.

Castiel stepped in front of her, grabbing both of her arms. “There is no one left.”

His blue eyes were stretched wide, and for a moment, that was all she could see. Then something else in the barn exploded, and the flames went so high that they licked the stars. Danielle screamed, and then she was on the ground, and she was screaming and coughing and covering her ears. She was covered in ash and dirt and her shirt was wet with blood and sweat.

There was nothing left, nothing left of any of them. Just her.

Just her.

Sam and Dean took her back to Bobby’s house, where they helped her clean up. Other than that, there wasn’t much that could be done.

She spent most of her time alone. Mostly, she stayed up in Bobby’s attic room, keeping out of the way. When the boys were home, they’d visit, spending time up with her. Bobby was constantly checking in. At first, it was terrible, and for a while the boys weren’t sure if she would ever get over.

But, slowly, she came back to herself. She was more solemn, more quiet, but after falling apart for about a week or two, she seemed to be doing better. The boys would come back from a hunt and find her in the living room, researching with Bobby. Or she’d be making them salt rounds or reading a book on the front porch swing.

Dean found her on the swing. Her book laid in her lap, forgotten, and she was staring out at the road. “Hey princess,” he greeted as he sat next to her. He picked up the book and made a face. “Game of Thrones? Isn’t that a show?”

She raised her eyebrows. “And?”

“Why read when you can just watch?”

“The books are always better,” she said, taking the novel back.

“That’s not a book,” he said, eyeing the massive thing. “That’s an encyclopedia.”

“Oh, haha,” she sneered.

He rested the heels of his boots against the ground and set to gently swinging them. It had been three weeks since the whole incident with Sophie, and Danielle was still with them. And while that was great and all, they were starting to get a little antsy. While Dean thought she just didn’t want to be alone while she was grieving, Sam was wondering if she was trying to avoid going back into the real world.

“Hey,” Dean started. “I gotta question, and don’t think I’m trying to kick you out or let you down easy or anything, but… Are you planning on leaving anytime soon?” She looked away, pressing her lips together. “I’m not the one who went to college, but I’m hard-pressed to believe they let you skip as many days as you want and still give you a diploma or a doctorate or whatever the hell you’re going to school for.”

“I dropped out,” she confessed.

“O- Oh,” he said, trying to hide his surprise. “Right. Dropped… So are you gonna be heading home soon or…?”

“There’s nothing there for me except an empty house. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

She fixed with her doe eyes, and Dean shook his head. “You know you’re always welcome here but trust me, you don’t want this life. It’s gritty and dark and it always ends bloody.”

“It’s already ended bloody for me,” she pointed out with a small smirk. Her hand went to her stomach, though there wasn’t even so much as a scar left.

“You still don’t remember?”

She shook her head, frowning. “Everything got really hot, and the next thing I knew I was in a burning barn. I don’t remember dying, or going anywhere, or being brought back. It’s like I never even left.”

He nodded. “Well, count yourself fortunate. Remembering sucks.”

They were quiet for a minute, just rocking back and forth. The breeze tugged on her curls, blowing them against his side.

“You can start over,” he said. “You’re smart. Just go back to school, be a doctor, and spend the rest of your life living behind a white picket fence.”

Her eyes were filled with such sorrow that it made his heart twist. “I can’t,” she said softly. “I don’t want to. How am I supposed to just move on and pretend like none of this ever happened? Like monsters and demons aren’t real and the apocalypse isn’t happening?” She shook her head. “There’s no moving on from this, no going back to what it used to be. This if my life now.”

“Are you sure? Once you’re in, you’re in. There’s no way out. This stuff will always catch up to you.”

She met his gaze evenly. “I’m already in.”

He pressed his lips together, facing straight ahead. “Well,” he said. “I guess that means I’ll have to teach you how to shoot.”


	6. danielle the cowardly prophet

_ “therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. each day has enough trouble of its own.” - Matthew 6:34 _

 

Dean couldn’t help but smirk at the disgusted face Danielle was making as she took in their sketchy motel room. “Something wrong, princess?”

“Is that a- I just saw a cockroach.” She pressed her lips together as if she was fighting back the urge to gag. “What’s so bad about a nice Hampton Inn? Holiday Express?”

Sam chuckled. “You’re gonna have to forget all about that if you wanna roll with us.”

She made a face, turning to the door that connected her room to Sam and Dean’s. She yanked on the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. She huffed, whining Dean’s name and fixing him with a pitiful frown.

“You just gotta,” Dean started, pushing the door. When it wouldn’t budge, he wedged his shoulder and gave it one big shove. It burst open, dust showering down from the frame. “Put your shoulder into it,” he finished, grinning at the girl.

She went into the room, throwing her bags on a chair. “So where is this brother of y’alls?”

“He’s gonna meet us at a diner in about two hours,” Dean responded, filling his gun with salt rounds. Sam did the same, and they filled up vials of holy water. Dean tucked away the demon knife before they headed over to the diner.

Danielle and Sam exchanged a glance as Dean filled a glass of water with holy water, replacing the diner’s silverware with his own that was pure silver. “What are you planning to do, accidentally stab him?”

He shot her a look, setting the fork and knife down beside Sam.

“And what if he really is your brother?” she asked, looking between the two.

Sam and Dean looked at each other. “Then we deal with it,” Sam said. Dean’s jaw tightened, and she wondered what dealing with it meant for him.

They saw the boy as soon as he entered. He was a little shaggy, with messy blonde hair and dark circles under blue eyes. They waved him over, and he slid in next to Sam.

“Sam and Dean?”

The brothers nodded. “This is our friend Danielle.” She shot him a small smile.

“Um, so how did you guys know my dad?” Adam asked.

“We worked together,” Sam answered, never missing a beat.

Adam’s life, compared to Sam and Dean’s, was a cake walk. He wasn’t raised a hunter, had a normal, relatively happy childhood. When their dad visited him, he took him to baseball games and bought him birthday cakes while he was taking Sam and Dean on hunts and buying them .22’s.

It was all too much for Dean. He listened until he couldn’t take anymore and snapped, standing up and stalking out of the diner. He ignored Danielle, only stopping when Adam claimed that he could prove it.

The car ride to his house was a silent, awkward one, only made worse when they arrived and Adam showed them a picture of him and John Winchester. Dean was all but speechless, boiling with enough anger to make even Danielle uncomfortable.

They combed the house for any evidence that would point them to where Adam’s mom had disappeared to. Danielle found herself in her bedroom, alone, staring at a picture of John.

The floorboards creaked behind her, and she turned as Dean came into the room.

“He looks like you,” she said, angling her head towards the photograph.

He smiled, a humorless, wry thing before looking around the room. “I’m just glad you didn’t say he looks like Adam.”

Danielle didn’t know what to say. It was terrible that Adam had gotten so lucky and he was the one who got to see the nice side of their dad, while Sam and Dean spent countless nights alone, fending for themselves while he was out hunting.

“Hey, I’m sorry about all this,” she said. “It’s all pretty crappy.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I’ll say,” he mumbled, doing a double take as he saw something. He looked under the bed, and Danielle came around to his side. She helped him move off the mattress, revealing a grate with claw marks leading straight to it.

They called the others in, and Dean said, “If anyone here likes small dark spaces now would be the time to speak up.” No one did, and Sam and Dean settled on rock papers scissors which, of course, Dean lost.

“He always picks scissors,” Sam told her as Dean slipped into the grate. They only had to wait for about ten minutes before Dean came back. He told Adam he found something, whispering that it wasn’t good to her and Sam. Adam called the cops, and they bailed before they could show.

He stormed into their motel room about two hours later, demanding answers. Despite Dean’s protests, Sam gave their half-brother all the information he wanted and then some. When Dean finally stormed out of the room, Danielle followed, figuring she could do more help with damage control than explain the intricacies of hunting.

“Dean!” she called. He kept going. She had to jog to catch up to him. “Dean, slow down.”

He whirled around. “What?”

She flinched at his sharp tone. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” he repeated, incredulous. “How about the fact that this kid pops up out of the blue, claiming to be our brother? You see, Sam- He has no problem believing whatever he says. But it’s all just a trap;  _ no one  _ just… trusts that easily.”

“I do,” she answered. She had to squint in the setting sun’s harsh light. The sun turned her hair to russet, eyes shining auburn.

“Yeah, well, you’re… you! Things are different with you.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, “but everything about Adam checks out. It sucks, but I really do think he’s just your brother.”

Dean gritted his teeth. “Just get in the car.”

After checking out the tomb where the bodies had been snatched and swinging by the bar that the missing bartender had worked at, they finally went back to the motel. As soon as they arrived, though, they realized something was wrong.

Sam and Adam were both sprinting towards Adam’s car. Dean slammed on his brakes as Sam was yanked off his feet and pulled under the car.

Dean dove out, grabbing him just in time. Danielle could only manage to climb out of the car, clinging onto the door like it was a shield.

“You okay?” Danielle called out once it was clear the creature was gone.

“Fine,” he grunted.

They headed back to Adam’s house then to gather his stuff before going out to the woods to let Adam practice shooting. Sam was showing him while her and Dean lingered near the car; she sat on the hood, and he leaned against it, a beer in his hand.

“I should really learn how to shoot too,” Danielle pointed out. Dean had promised to a while back, but they’d never gotten the chance. He kept putting it off.

“Yeah, we’ll get to it.” His narrowed eyes never left Sam and Adam.

Sam grinned as Adam nearly hit the bullseye. “Dude, you’re a natural!”

Dean scoffed, shaking his head.

“Dean-”

“Don’t start.”

“It might help if you just talked to me about it.”

“Should we slow dance too? Maybe I can rest my head gently on your shoulder?” He snorted. “I’m not gonna talk about it.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” he answered. Danielle kept her concerned gaze on him, and he rolled his eyes. He knocked the brim of her baseball cap down over her eyes. “Stop looking at me like that, princess.”

She smiled as she pushed the hat back to its normal position. Suddenly, she scowled, rubbing a thumb against her temple. 

“You okay?” Dean asked.

“Uh- yeah. Just a headache.”

“Like the ones you get before your visions?”

The foreboding expression she wore was all he needed as an answer. They returned to Adam’s house. The three of them sat at the kitchen table, Danielle and Adam listening to Sam’s retelling of the Winchesters’ Best Hits. Dean sat off on the side, of course, listening with a scowl.

“So, how did you get into all this?” Adam turned to Danielle. “Sam said you aren’t my sister.”

“No,” she said. She hesitated, glancing at the boys, unsure if she should tell him. Sam nodded, and she said, “I’m a prophet.”

“A… prophet? Like, see-the-future kind of prophet?”

Almost on cue, there was a throb of pain. “Is there any other kind?” She smiled to try and play off the pain, but the throbs only grew worse. With a faint groan, she dropped her head into her hands and dug her nails into her scalp. 

“You good?” Dean asked.

“Great.” She pinched the bridge of her nose before fishing through her bag and taking a few advil. There was a wave of drowsiness, and she headed to the living room. “I’m gonna pass out real quick.”

It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep, her mind racked with a future so terrifying that she woke up hours later with a scream stuck to her lips. She just barely managed to swallow it, covering her eyes with the palms of her hands.

“Oh, and by the way, he really was your brother.”

That was a woman’s voice. Danielle tensed, freezing on the couch and listening as closely as she could manage. The metallic stench of blood filled her nose, nearly choking her.

“You should know that.”

“He was still alive when we took our first bites.”

That was Adam. The voices were coming from the other room, the dining room, Adam and a woman. Through the doorway, shadows passed on the walls, and she thought she could just see the top of Sam’s head, laying on the table. Sam started yelling as they did… something to him.

Her phone was in the kitchen. The stairs and a wall separated them; she could sneak back there.  _ No, _ she thought. She’d have to run. They were ghouls - how they missed that was a mystery - and had heightened senses; they’d hear her walking.

Could they hear her breathing? She slowed it, hoping they hadn’t already noticed. Judging by Sam’s constant yelling, they were too preoccupied to notice.

_ Now.  _

She didn’t move.

Her body was frozen, every muscle refusing to so much as twitch. Her heart pounded against her ribs so painfully that she thought it might break bones. It took more effort than she was willing to admit to push herself up off the couch. She swayed, her knees nearly buckling as she took a small step.

The ghouls paused, and Sam’s shouting turned into a groan.

Danielle ran, sliding on the linoleum floor and crashing next to her bag. Her hands shook so badly that she couldn’t grab anything in it, let alone find her phone.

And then the bag was gone, sliding across the floor, and Adam was standing over her. “Well good morning,” he greeted.

She scrambled away, clawing up to her feet and leaning against the wall. Adam reached out, and she stumbled as she ran, slamming against the floor with enough force to jarr her whole body. She clambered back up and ran for the door.

The woman was already there, flashing blood-stained teeth. “It’s about time you got up. We were wondering if you were ever gonna.”

“Help me, Danielle!” Sam said. He was strapped down on the table with blood dripping into bowls from various cuts all over his arms. She wanted to help, she did, but the panic and the terror was all too much- she was blinded, suffocated, trapped. All she could do was gape.

The woman came up behind her, trailing her nose across her neck as she inhaled. Danielle closed her eyes and shivered.

“Don’t hurt her,” Adam warned. “She’s got that damn angel.”

“I know. I just want a sniff. She smells so good.” She wrapped an arm around Danielle’s waist, pulling her flush to her body. Danielle whimpered, struggling to get away.

Ghoul-Adam rolled his eyes. “Leave her be. The demons are gonna want her in one piece.” The ghoul let her go, and Danielle crumpled. She leaned against the wall, trying not to pass out. “You’re gonna get us hundreds of humans to feed off of. A whole town.”

“A buffet!” The woman clapped her hands. “I can’t wait. But first, we should get our appetizer out of the way.”

She slid to the ground, cupping her hands over her ears. Terrified, she could barely breathe, couldn’t move, frozen with fear and horror. Sam was screaming, and she was crying, and the ghouls were laughing and singing. Her nightmares weren’t half as bad as this; this was worse, this was worse.

Dean showed up hours, days, years later, splashing hot blood all over Danielle as he killed the two monsters. Sam was barely conscious, but the bodies were blown apart, Ghoul-Adam’s face nothing but a hole oozing meat and blood. She was covered in blood.

“Hey, Dan, we could use a doctor,” Dean said as he wrapped his bandana around Sam’s wrists. He helped him up, but Sam just crumpled.

“Danny?” The girl hadn’t moved, was only staring at the bodies. “Hey, it’s alright now.” Nothing. “Fine. Just sit there.”

Eventually, she got up. They drove out into the woods, where Dean slung the real Adam’s body onto a pyre. Danielle threw up behind a tree. The smoke stung her eyes, her nose, making her cough.

No one spoke. There was nothing to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for all the kind reviews!!!! y'all are saying the sweetest things, thanks so much! hope you keep enjoying (:


	7. a is for abandoned

_ “for if GOD did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgement … if this is so, then the LORD knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgement” - 2 Peter 2:4-9 _

 

The boys hadn’t wanted her to come; going by the last time she went out with them, she couldn’t really blame them. But, according to Dean, Cas was unhinged in his dream, and that worried her. Besides, if something was really wrong, they’d have the archangel to back them up.

Instead of Cas, they only found a factory building near blown to shreds. Lights flickered, steam rose from pipes that were ripped apart, and Sam said, “Looks like a bomb went off.”

“There was a fight here,” Dean agreed.

Danielle picked her way through piles of debris taller than even Sam. Dean’s flashlight shone on a giant Enochian symbol, the same one Anna had used to blast away the angels.

“So, what, Cas is fighting angels?” Sam asked.

Castiel was lying unconscious amidst the carnage. Danielle called the boys, tearing a hole in her jeans as she hurried to his side. She reached out to check his pulse before stopping. Something was … off. It was like when the neighbors cut the lawn; after a while, the lawnmower gets tuned out, but when the mower finally turns off, the silence it leaves in its wake was near-deafening.

He was like a lightbulb; sometimes she could hear the electricity running through it. As if the celestial energy pulsed underneath the borrowed skin, strongly enough for her to hear it. 

She checked his pulse - did angels have pulses? - only to feel a light pattering. Sam handed his flashlight, and she looked at his pupils. He woke then, gasping and rocketing up to his feet.

“Whoa, take it easy,” Dean said.

Danielle was at his side, reaching for his arm. The man was stumbling, grabbing at the coat with a crazed look in his eyes. “Cas, you okay?” Sam asked.

“I’m- I’m not Castiel. It’s me. Jimmy. My name is Jimmy.”

“Where the hell is Castiel?”

Jimmy shook his head, and Danielle’s stomach twisted. “He’s gone.”

They stopped at a Burger King on the way back to the hotel, watching with various degrees of concern and disgust as he devoured burger after burger, barely pausing enough to breathe. “I haven’t eaten in months,” he said as they stared.

They grilled him then, Danielle staying quiet and listening. After he told them that he didn’t remember anything that had happened, couldn’t even tell them whether Castiel was alive or not, Sam and Dean slipped out to discuss what the next step was.

For a minute, there was just the crinkling of wrappers as Jimmy continued to eat. “So…” Danielle began, breaking the awkward silence. “How’d you get to be a vessel?”

“I was a religious man,” he said. “Castiel… He started to talk to me, through the T.V., through the radio, stuff like that. He tested my faith, asked me to do things to prove my love for God. And then he just asked if I wanted to become something better. If I wanted to serve my ‘true purpose’.” Jimmy snorted.

Her eyebrows furrowed. “You don’t sound happy about it.”

“At the time, I thought… It’s God’s will, you know. Who am I to question that? But now…” He shook his head. “Having an angel inside you is like being chained to a comet. It was horrible. I wish I had never said yes.”

Her stomach twisted. An angel had made a man lose faith; what even  _ was _ that? How did that happen? The irony of it all left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Sam and Dean entered then, explaining that Jimmy had to stay with them. For his own safety. He didn’t like it, but once Sam made it clear that he wasn’t going anywhere, he settled down.

Danielle felt like she’d only been asleep for a few minutes before Sam was shaking her awake. Jimmy had given him the slip. Dean thought the whole thing was hilarious, and Danielle couldn’t help but snort at his various quips. Eventually, after Dean had taken his sweet time getting ready, they were headed to Jimmy’s home in Pontiac.

When Anna suddenly appeared in the backseat next to her, she screamed so shrilly that Dean fishtailed on the road. “Smooth,” Anna stated.

“You ever try calling ahead?” Dean demanded.

“I like the element of surprise.” Danielle only had a moment to feel awkward; she was the one who gave her away to the angels. And, if her haggard appearance was any indication, the fallen angel wasn’t doing too well. “You let Jimmy get away?”

“Talk to Ginormo,” Dean said.

“Sam.” Anna paused. “You seem… different.”

“Me? I don’t know, haircut?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” she said, cutting off his breathless laugh. Sam just looked away, and Danielle’s stomach knotted up. Did it have something to do with his ability to kill demons? Anna turned back to Dean. “So what’d Jimmy tell you? He remember anything?”

“Why, what’s going on?”

“It’s Cas. He got sent back home. Well, more like dragged back.”

“That’s not a good thing?”

“No,” she said, as if it were obvious. “That’s a very bad thing. Painfully, awfully bad.”

Danielle had been holding her tongue, hoping that Anna wouldn’t notice her. But she couldn’t resist. “Who took him?”

Anna’s green eyes found hers and paused. For a moment, the girls stared at each other, Danielle’s heart pounding in her throat. Danielle tried to read her expression, but she could have been carved from marble for all she could tell. “I don’t know.”

“Cas said he had something to tell me,” Dean said, drawing the angel’s attention away. “Something important.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does Jimmy know?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t  _ think  _ so?” Anna demanded. “Whatever it is, it’s huge. You gotta find out for sure.”

“That’s why we’re going after Jimmy.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t have let him go in the first place,” Anna said, her tone scathing. 

She left then, and the rest of the drive was tense. As soon as they pulled up to Jimmy’s house, they could tell something was wrong. The sounds of shattering glass and screams were muffled, but still noticeable, even outside the house.

Dean stopped her as she ran up to the house. “Stay here!” he commanded.

“No, I wanna help!” She pushed against him as Sam bowled past them. “The archangel-”

“You can’t bring an archangel down here, Dan, look around you!” His breath pooled from his lips in a fine mist, and his emerald eyes stretched wide as he gently shook her shoulders to get his point across. “You’re in a neighborhood! Stay  _ here. _ ”

With that, he took off, and Danielle paced the sidewalk. The screams grew louder, with flashes of light filtering through the beige curtains. After a minute, Jimmy and his wife and daughter came running out of the house, Sam and Dean hot on their heels. Danielle helped them into the car, wrapping her arms around the little girl as she sat in her lap.

They stopped in a parking garage a couple towns over. While Sam and Dean spoke to Jimmy outside, Danielle remained in the backseat with Amelia and Claire. Neither really wanted to talk, but Danielle at least was managing to get the little girl to smile.

Until Jimmy opened the door to talk to them. Danielle stepped out, watching the family with Sam and Dean before sending them off in their own hotwired car.

Of course, it didn’t take long for everything to go horribly wrong. A running theme, she was starting to understand. When the demon that possessed Amelia called Jimmy, they did an about face and raced back to the office building near the parking garage.

The boys were trying to calm Jimmy down before he went inside. They explained the plan, and Danielle listened, heart pounding. Just being so near to demons made her nervous, especially knowing that Jimmy’s family was at risk. Claire was just a little girl.

A very thin high-pitched noise drew her attention away. It grew louder and louder, but no one else seemed to hear it. She glanced out at the trees and the roads around them; there was nothing.

“Dan?” Dean waved his hands at her. “What are you looking for? Just- Nevermind. You wait here, okay? Don’t come in, no matter what. If you think things are getting a little too dicey, call Bobby.”

“ _ Don’t  _ come in,” Sam added. “You’ll get innocent people killed. Including us.”

Danielle nodded, and they left her alone. Except she wasn’t alone; the noise was growing ever louder, becoming more piercing. But it didn’t hurt her ears. And there was a warmth, too, almost like…

“... Danielle …”

The voice made her jump with fear, but when she turned around there was no one. A chill ran down her spine as she held her breath. Maybe she had just imagined it.

The noise was so loud she could barely hear over it, but it dulled as the voice became the main focus. It was strange: it sounded like it was being whispered in her ear while coming from all around her at the same time.

"Dan … you underst… me?"

She recgnized the voice. “Castiel?”

"Daniell … ne … elp."

It was like a cell phone with bad connection. She struggled to comprehend his meaning behind the few snatches of words she could understand. 

“You need help?” 

The voice was unfocused and grainy, rising and falling continuously. Danielle could only grab snatches, and she struggled to comprehend his words. The ringing from the angel's voice didn't make the process any easier.

“I need … vessel in orde … demons. All you have … say yes.”

A pause before she understood. “You- You need a vessel? Because Jimmy?”

“Yes.”

Danielle hesitated.  _ Like being chained to a comet,  _ Jimmy had said. What exactly did that feel like? How excruciating? For a moment, she was terrified, too scared to make up her mind. But there was no running from this. Now was not the time to be a coward. She had to be the hero, for once, to prove to Sam and Dean that she could do it. She had to save these people, had to save that little girl.

She took a rattling breath. “Yes.”

Light poured down across her shoulders, wrapping her up in an unnatural warmth. For a moment, it was nice, comforting even, until her skin started to prickle. Her bones rattled inside her body, and she felt like she was being pulled and pushed in all kinds of directions. The world turned black, or maybe white, and everything was moving so fast, and then she exploded.

There was nothing.

And then there was light.

It was like treading water, she discovered after a moment. Except this water was endlessly deep, and it glowed so bright that it scorched her retinas. She needed to blink, had to blink; the tears were running down her cheeks from her eyes. Except, that wasn’t true, because her eyes were staring at the world around her. A world she only saw in passing, like a dream.

Every muscle ached with fatigue, and her skin burned and itched like she was being prodded with needles. It felt like she was close to the sun, like Icarus, she had bitten off more than she could chew. Someone said something that described it perfectly, but she couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember anything. It was just Castiel, just the heat, just the pain. 

She was drowning, and she was burning, and she was suffocating. 

Danielle was trapped inside her own mind, but her mind was not her own. It was Castiel’s too, just like his was hers. They were one, the same being, interchangeable. His thoughts filled her mind as hers no doubt filled his. It was incredible, the angel’s mind. Indescribable. 

But it  _ hurt.  _

Every so often, she would give up. She would quit treading the water, try to shrink away from the unbearable heat before her skin cracked and crumbled to ash. It was all too much, it was impossible, she couldn’t handle it all. He asked too much. She had bitten off more than she could chew. He was the sun.

“Keep going,” his voice would whisper, coming from nowhere and everywhere and chasing the pain back. “You can do it.”

His encouragement came every time, filling her with courage. She could do it, and even if she couldn’t, she would find a way. She had to. For Castiel, for heaven, for God.

“Yes,” he would cheer. “This is all for the Lord. Remember that.”

Slowly, everything started to fade. The water, the pain, the light. She swelled up like a balloon, filling in her body. Castiel was still inside, fading as well. It came back in pieces: her vision, blurry and trembling. Touch. Smell. The taste of ash and blood and something different, something bright and clean and divine.

With a loud snap, everything went black before she was thrust violently back in control of her body. She sucked in air, sputtering and gasping.

Jimmy- no, Castiel, sat in front of her. His eyes were steady as she groaned, sparing her only a nod before rising. She choked, scrambling away on hands and knees and emptying her stomach on the floor. Exhausted, she collapsed onto her side, her limbs too weak to support her. 

Two Castiels spoke to five or six Winchesters for only a second before the angels were gone. Then it was four Winchesters headed towards her, then three, and finally one as Dean bent down to pick her up. “Hang in there, kid,” he said before she passed out. 

She woke up much later, feeling like she’d been run over with a truck. She tried to turn onto her side, but her body hurt much too much for that. A groan brough Bobby up the stairs. “You awake?” he asked from the doorway.

“Unfortunately,” she meant to say, but the words came out far too garbled to be anything intelligible.

“Can you get up?”

She sat up, wincing. As she woke, the pain started to go away, turning into just a faint ache. Her mouth was dry, though, and she was starving. When she told Bobby as much, the old man chuckled and helped her down the stairs.

Dean tossed a drink her way. Thankfully, Bobby caught it, popping the top and handing it over to her. She sagged into a kitchen chair. “How you feelin’?”

“Been better,” she said, flashing him her teeth before trying to rub some of the tension from her shoulders. Bobby brushed her hands away and took over. “Where’s Sam?” He was nowhere to be seen.

Dean’s eyes flitted up to Bobby’s before dropping back down to Danielle’s. “Panic room.”

She was missing something. Something was wrong. “Doing…?”

“Getting off his demon blood high.”

“Wait-  _ What?  _ What does that even mean?”

Dean sighed. “Well, at least you didn’t know. Counts for something.” He took a gulp, nearly drowning half the bottle in a single go. “His powers? Come from demon blood.”

“He’s been drinking the stuff like a damn vamp,” Bobby finished.

Danielle didn’t know what to say to that. What was there to say to that? All she knew was that the fear that gripped her heart was real, and that this was  _ bad _ . Nothing good ever came from demons, especially not superhuman powers. Regardless of what Sam was using them for, he had to know that drinking demon blood was wrong. Didn’t he? In the end, she only shook her head and took another sip of her water.

“Anyways…” Dean’s fingers tapped on his beer, eyes narrowing. “What were you thinking?”

“Me?” Danielle asked, voice going shrill with surprise. What had she done wrong?

“No, Jessica. Yeah, you. Letting Cas crawl up in your meat suit?” At her expression, he shook his head. “C’mon, man, you know that was stupid! You do realize he was planning to ride your ass for the rest of eternity, right?”

She gaped. That part of the message had been conveniently left out. 

Dean nodded. “Yeah. He was going to let Jimmy die, but the guy had a last minute change of heart.  _ Eternity,  _ Dan.”

It felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest. She’d been  _ this close _ to being stuck like that, forever. Just thinking about it made her sick.

She pushed away from the table. Before she made it anywhere, a scream echoed up the stairs. Danielle froze, looking to Dean, but he only took another drink.

“It’s… one hell of a detox,” Bobby said.


	8. help me, help you

_ “it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you…” 1 Peter 1:12 _

 

Danielle paused outside Sam’s door. Inside, he was wincing at some invisible apparition, sitting on the cot. His shirt was drenched in sweat; she should have brought him another one. She turned to get it but was stopped.

“Danny,” he called out. His voice was weak, husky, scratchy. No doubt because his throat was raw from screaming. Sometimes his hallucinations were more violent than others, and his shouts would rip through the house. She hadn’t slept well in days.

Sam offered her a weak, tremulous smile as she entered. She sat down next to him, offering the glass of water and painkillers she’d brought. He downed them while she felt his forehead, checked his pulse, looked at his pupils. All of it only confirmed what they already knew: he was crashing, hard. His fever hadn’t gotten any better, and his sweat was cold. His heart beat too fast, too weak, like a bird’s.

The longer he was in here, the worse he got. At this point, he needed professional help. Any longer and he might not even survive.

“How are the hallucinations?” she asked.

“Worse.” He stared down at the glass in his hands.

_ I have to tell Dean,  _ Danielle resolved. Sam couldn’t stay in here; he was going to die. The only problem would be getting Dean to give in. When Bobby and Danielle had approached him with their concerns the first time, he’d shot them down. “At least he’ll die human,” he had snapped, much to their surprise. Well, she wasn’t Dean, and she had no intentions of sitting back and letting anyone die.

“What are Dean and Bobby doing?”

“Dean’s sleeping. Bobby went to go help Rufus with some hunt or something.” Sam stood up, setting the glass on the table. He lingered there with his back to her. “He called earlier. A bunch of seals are being broken. Like, a lot.”

“Yeah, he told me.”

There was a pause. “Is there anything I can do?”

Sam snorted. “Yeah, get me out of here.”

“You know I can’t-”

“Can’t or won’t?” He turned on her, eyes hard and jaw clenched. “There’s a difference, you know. You don’t just have to blindly follow whatever Dean says.”

“I don’t-”

“Yes, you do,” he said with a scathing, humorless laugh. He looked as if he was going to say more, but Danielle was looking at her hands. He turned back to the table. “I’m sorry,” he said, gently.

Danielle looked back up, but the chair swinging towards her was the last thing she saw.

The next thing she saw was Dean, his face hovering over hers. He kept shaking, blurry, and she was so tired. She tried to go back to sleep, but he wouldn’t let her. Distantly, she could hear something, far away. The longer she looked, the clearer he became, though it hurt.

Everything hurt; her body ached, though it hurt worst at her head. A temple was throbbing so painfully that it jarred her teeth. His face got closer, and for a moment she was floating.

By the time he laid her down on the couch upstairs, she had come back to her senses. He sat on the couch next to her, untying the bandana from around his wrist and gently laying it against her head. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. She tried to answer, but her tongue was swollen. She could taste blood in her mouth. No doubt she’d bitten her tongue when… when… 

Dean held the bag with one hand, cradling his phone between his cheek and shoulder. His other hand cupped her face, tapping his fingers against her cheekbone. “Danny?” And then, “Bobby! Sam’s gone.” A pause. “He hit Danielle over the head!”

That was right. She remembered now, remembered seeing the chair coming for her head. She flinched right as the chair would have made contact, and Dean held her steady.

“If I knew where the hell he went the hell would I be calling you for?”

He tossed the phone aside in disgust, focusing his attention on Danielle. “Hey, princess. You in there?”

She nodded and winced. “Ow. Yeah.”

“Think you can hold this?” She did as much. “Atta girl.” Dean flashed her a smile, as much as he could muster, and disappeared into the kitchen. He came back with a bag of ice and swapped it out with the bloody bandana.

“Did he say anything to you?” Dean asked. “Anything at all.”

“No.” Her throat tightened. “Why would he-”

“It’s the blood,” he said, jaw set. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

She let out a ragged breath. “Okay.”

After a moment, he said, “Have you had any visions recently? Anything that would tell us where he went?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

He nodded. “I’m gonna go see what car he took. You good for holdin’ the fort down in here?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, princess. I’ll be right outside, so if you need anything just yell. Be right back.”

The police called that morning when they found the car Sam took abandoned in an alley. Of the two other cars stolen - an anonymous ‘99 Honda Civic and a flashy white Escalade - Dean opted to chase down the Escalade, knowing Sam would pick that one to keep off their radar.

Danielle leaned in the window before he left. “What are you gonna do when you find him?”

“First, I’m gonna kill Ruby. And then I’m gonna kick his ass.” Dean flashed her a wide smile.

Danielle wanted to smile, but her chest was too tight to hardly speak. Never in a million years could she guess that Sam was capable of anything like this. She was worried for Dean; there was no telling what Sam would do.

“Be careful,” she said before wincing. Her head was throbbing, and she knew it wasn’t just from the bruise on her temple.

He only nodded as he pulled out and drove away.

With Bobby gone, Danielle locked up the house, drew the shutters, and curled up beneath a blanket on the moth-eaten couch. It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep.

And when she woke screaming, she was in a different room.

For a while, her breaths came so fast and frantically she worried she was dying. As her vision got blurry and she got light-headed, she bent her head between her knees and laced her hands over the back of her neck. It took a long time, but eventually she could breathe, and as the raw terror faded it was replaced with horror.

_ Sam will start Armageddon. _

She was in her old bedroom. The christmas lights, the paint on the walls, all the bookshelves… they were all there as if she hadn’t walked away and let the bank reclaim it. She clambered out of the bed, turning on the lamps and idly remaking the bed. If she kept her hands busy, if she focused on what she was doing, she didn’t have to think about what was going to happen in the real world. She didn’t have to panic about being alone in a room that no longer existed.

“Danielle.”

It was Cas. Relief flooded her body as she took in the angel, as stoic as ever. He would know what to do; now that she knew where and when, she could tell the angels and they could stop it. They would all be safe. She could do it. 

“It’s almost time,” he said, and his stony expression was gone. His eyes were widened, and she could have sworn there was fear swimming in those blue orbs.

She shook her head. He had to know that she knew, didn’t he? Did he bring her here? Why would he, why would he not just appear in Bobby’s house? “I know what’s going to happen,” she said, and her words came out a soft whisper, dreading his reaction.

And his reaction was exactly what she expected: he dropped his gaze, gave himself a moment to answer. Then, without saying a word, without asking when or where or how, he disappeared.

_ They want this,  _ she knew then.  _ They’ve always wanted this. _

There was no time to panic. There was no time to be afraid. She had to brave. It was no surprise that when she tried the doorknob it was locked. Throwing her shoulder against it had no effect, and no one answered as she beat on the door. She used one of the lamps, but it only shattered as she slammed it against the wood.

“C’mon, Danielle.” She whirled to see a white-haired man standing in the center of the room. He was smirking. “That was a nice lamp. A little reckless of you, don’t you think, to destroy it?”

“I want out of here.” Her voice shook.

His smirk grew wider. “We can negotiate the terms of your release in a moment. First, we’re going to have a civilized conversation. My name is Zachariah. It’s nice to meet you. See? Like that.”

She had to play along. “It’s n-nice to meet y-you.”

“I always knew you were smart.” He winked. “Now, news is you just had a vision. You want out? Tell me what you saw and swear not to tell anyone else.”

Her throat was so tight it was a struggle to breathe, let alone speak. Her mind was racing; she needed a way out, needed to find a loophole. But she couldn’t think, she couldn’t think of anything, she needed to stall. “Why? Why can’t I tell anyone?”

He raised an eyebrow and scowled. Her heart leapt into her throat. “Because Heaven says so.”

“You want it to happen,” she whispered. When Castiel had left Jimmy, there was a sigil on the wall. She tried desperately to remember it; she wasn’t sure what it did, but if he used it, it must be effective.

He grinned. “Of course we do! Paradise on Earth, what could be better than that?”

“Lucifer-”

“Will be unleashed, yes, but you know your bible don’t you? The good side will win, evil will forever be vanquished, and everyone you’ve ever known will be at peace. Including Sam and Dean. You want that, don’t you?”

She shook her head.  _ Stupid silver-tongued angels.  _ She should have trusted Dean, why hadn’t she trusted Dean? He would know what to do. If this was him, he would know how to get out of here. She just had to think like him. “People will die.”

“People always die. You know what they say: gotta break a few eggs for an omelet. Truckloads of eggs in this scenario, but still. You get the idea.”

She swallowed the fear and nodded. “Okay. Okay.”

“Okay…?”

“I swear. I won’t tell anyone.”

He leaned forward, but his eyes were hungry, not mistrustful. “And your vision? Does it work? Is he let out?”

She only nodded. Zachariah shut his eyes for a brief second, and a real, genuine smile spread across his face. It was sickening. When he opened them again, her stomach sank. “Thank you for your cooperation,” he said before vanishing.

Danielle was still in the room.  _ No.  _ She beat on the walls, on the door, crying as she tried desperately to get away. She called for him, for Dean and for Cas and God. Only Cas answered, however, appearing on the other side of the room.

“You called.”

“Get me out of here,” she begged. “Cas, you have to help me.”

“No.”

She shook her head, desperate to get him to see. “People are going to  _ die,  _ Cas. Don’t you care about that? Don’t you care about any of it? We can help, we can  _ stop this. _ ” When she stepped towards him, he stepped away. He wouldn’t meet her gaze, his eyes focused solely on his scuffed shoes.

“I can’t,” he said.

“What did they do to you?” she asked. The Castiel she knew - or at least, thought she knew - would never have let innocent people die. He was good, righteous, noble. This was everything but.

“You knew it would happen,” he accused. He narrowed his eyes and started towards her, suddenly angry. “It was written. This was the plan all along; if it didn’t happen in your lifetime, it would have been your children’s. Your grandchildren’s or perhaps their children’s. This is destiny. This is God’s will.”

It was, but it wasn’t. It was but it couldn’t be. She couldn’t accept that. “God wouldn’t want this,” she said. “He  _ loves _ his children. He wouldn’t want them all to just die.”

“How can you claim to know what He wants?”

“I don’t, but I know what’s right. I know that this isn’t it. If this is supposed to happen, then okay, but it’s not supposed to happen right now. We wouldn’t feel like this if it was.”

He shook his head. His jaw was clenched, fury swimming in his sapphire eyes. “This is destiny. It has long-since been foretold.”

“How many people will die?” she asked. “How many  _ innocent people _ ?”

Castiel’s anger faded, replaced with such despair that it ripped her up inside. “God-”

“Stop talking about God!” She clapped her hands over her mouth to keep any other shocking things from being said. He was just as surprised as her, and she took a moment to gather her scattered thoughts. He was on the brink; if she could just finish this, if she could get all the way through to him… “Cas, people will die.”

“What is so worth saving?” he demanded. “All I see is pain and guilt and despair-”

“Then look around,” she pleaded, tears in her eyes. “ _Love,_ Cas. That’s what’s worth saving. Someone can be hurt and guilty and sad, but love takes all of that away. Whether it’s love for God or for a significant other or just for family, it’s _powerful._ And it’s beautiful, and it’s absolutely worth saving.”

He looked to be completely unhinged then. His eyes were wide with a panicked sort of frenzy, his appearance ragged. For once, he was out of control, and it terrified him. “If we do this, we’ll all be hunted. We’ll all be killed.”

“We’re all gonna die anyways!” she said with a humorless laugh. “At least we’ll die doing something good.”

Without another word, he disappeared, leaving her alone.

She turned around to try the door again, and the room changed. Her old bedroom was gone, replaced with a white room with golden accents. An ornate chandelier hung from the ceiling and cast light over the religious paintings on the wall, catching the glass table beneath it and sparkling.

Dean was there too, and Danielle felt such a rush of relief she got dizzy. He ran to her, and she sagged against him. “Are you okay?” he demanded after hugging her. “Where have you been?”

“The angels had me locked away,” she said. “How long have I been gone?”

“Two days at least. Bobby got home and you were just gone.”

She covered her face with her hands. If two days had already passed, that meant that they might be too late. Sam might already be too far gone; they could be at the convent by now.

“Did you have a vision?” Dean asked. He squeezed her shoulders too hard, giving her a little shake. “Danielle, did you see what happens?”

She only shook her head. The words couldn’t come to her. He whispered a curse, running his hands over his head and pacing away. With a shout, he grabbed the huge bowl of ice and beer and threw it at the wall. It shattered, and he threw the bowl of burgers next. Everything he could get his hands on was either thrown or smashed. By the time he was through, the room was covered in glass and beer and smelled like mustard.

They blinked, and the mess was gone.

“Dicks!” Dean shouted up at the ceiling.

It wasn’t much longer before Castiel showed up again. He slammed Danielle against the wall, his hand clamped tightly over her mouth to muffle her scream. For a heartbeat, she mistook the crazed look of determination in his eyes and the demon knife in his hand.

When she realized what he was doing, a smile spread across her face. He let her go, nodding at Dean as he sliced his arm. They watched as he smeared his own blood across the wall, drawing some sort of sigil.

“Castiel!”

Danielle shrieked as Zachariah appeared, and Dean pulled her back so that he was between them. The angel charged, but Castiel slammed his palm against the wall. A light flashed through the room, so bright that her and Dean had to look away. When they looked again, Zachariah was gone.

“We don’t have much time,” Castiel said. 

“Where’s Sam?” Dean demanded.

They both looked at Danielle. “St. Mary’s Convent, Ilchester, Maryland.”

And then the room began to shake. Danielle’s stomach sank at the familiar rumbling. She could hear them coming, could hear the high-pitched noise. She grabbed Dean’s hand; so much for an escape plan.

“It’s the archangels!” Castiel roared, though he didn’t need to. Dean squeezed her fingers; his palm was sweating. “Go; I’ll hold them off, I’ll hold them all off!”

Castiel pressed his fingers to their foreheads, and they were gone. The light was gone, and the ground they were on was steady. They stood in front of a massive dilapidated building. A sign outside proclaimed that it was St. Mary’s.

Dean pushed her away. “Get as far from here as you can.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off. “The archangels!  _ Go _ .”

They could track her. So they both took off, Dean into the building and Danielle into the surrounding forest. It was dark, and she couldn’t see, and the trees seemed to not want her to leave. Branches grabbed at her, tearing into her clothes and skin. She tripped over a log and sprawled out across the damp leaves. Covered in mud, she clawed back up to her feet and continued to ran.

Her heart raced in her chest, and her feet kept pace with the frantic beat. Her lungs felt like they would explode, and each breath felt like she was swallowing needles. But she kept going, kept running, didn’t stop.

There was a light behind her, but no rumbling. No pitched noises. So she stopped and glanced behind her.

The convent was gone. Golden light shot straight up into the sky where the building had been, and she could see the rush of air coming towards her. It knocked her down, and she barely had time to crawl beneath the roots of a massive tree before the explosion.

_ The angels are coming,  _ she thought. The whole sky was lit up, and she could hear the high-pitched whine. The trees were red and orange and everything was glowing. Black floated in the air - feathers? - and she closed her eyes, at peace.


	9. judgement day

 

_ “but concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” - matthew 24:36 _

 

“She’s not doing very well.” The nurse had her lips pressed together, and her hair was a mess. Of course, she couldn’t be blamed. After the incident at the local abandoned convent, they had gotten a steady influx of patients who had been close to the explosion. Many of them were already too far gone; Danielle was one of the lucky ones. “She’s refusing treatment.”

Sam and Dean exchanged a look. “Can we see her?”

“Visiting hours are way over, and we’re swamped-”

“Please,” Sam said, hitting her with his puppy dog eyes. 

The nurse relented and led the boys over to the door.

Danielle was sitting in bed, eyes fixated on the Bible in her lap. Her hair hung limp from sweat and mud, and her whole body was covered in soot and blood. They could hear her labored, raspy breathing from the doorway.

“Dan?”

She sighed in relief when she saw them. “Thank God,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

“How you feelin’, princess?” Dean asked, sitting on the side of the bed.

“Why are you refusing treatment?” Sam questioned, coming to her other side.

“I don’t like hospitals. They won’t let me leave until I approve treatment or someone else signs me out.”

Dean patted her leg. “We already got you covered. You ready to get out of here?”

“Yes, please.”

They helped her out to the car after stealing some of the more benign medical supplies. She tended to the small cuts all over her body, wiping away the dirt and ash as best she could. “I thought y’all were dead,” she said after a long moment.

“Something put us on a plane,” Dean answered. “Away from the explosion.”

“I thought… When Judgment Day comes, the faithful just kinda… die.”

“I think that part comes later,” Sam said.

Another pause. “Has anyone heard from Cas?” Neither of them said anything, and Danielle’s heart panged in her chest.

She waited until they bunkered down in a nearby hotel to tell them what she knew. “When I was knocked out, I could hear the angels talking.”

“You can tune in to angel radio?” Dean asked.

She grimaced. “Sometimes. I don’t know how it works, and half the stuff they say doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, what did they say?” Sam prodded.

“That they lost the Michael sword, but it’s in a castle on a hill of forty-two dogs.”

The boys stared at her. The silence stretched on for several moments before Dean finally cleared his throat and said, “Sorry?”

She only shrugged. “That’s what they said.”

The brothers looked at each other, doubtful. “I’ll call Bobby,” Dean said.

A couple hours and a fast food meal later, Bobby showed up with the Impala. They got their greetings and the ‘y’all alright?’s out of the way and got to business. He opened one of the huge, leather-bound books he’d brought and poked the angel on the page. “That there’s Michael,” he explained. “He’s the toughest son-of-a-bitch they got. And that’s his sword. He’s the one who kicked Lucifer into the pit, and he’ll be the one to do it again.”

“So if we find the sword, we can stop the Devil,” Sam said, as if it were as simple as that.

“And now we just have to find the castle on doggy hill. Sounds easy,” Dean joked. Danielle rolled her eyes and huffed.

They had all split up, each tackling a different book, and Danielle made it halfway through by the time Bobby asked, “You alright kid?”

“No, actually,” Sam answered. “Bobby this is all my fault, I’m sorry-”

“Sam,” Dean warned.

“Lilith did not break the final seal. Lilith was the final seal.”

Danielle covered her mouth, carefully watching Bobby’s reaction. Her stomach was in knots.

“Sam, stop it.”

“I killed her, and I set Lucifer free.”

“You  _ what _ ?”

“You guys warned me about Ruby, the demon blood, but I didn’t listen.” His hands were shaking, but his voice was remarkably steady. “I brought this on.”

Bobby rose slowly to his feet, heading over to Sam. He stared up at his surrogate father, and for all the world he looked like a little boy who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. There was so much fear, so much desperation in her gaze that it made her heart ache.

“You’re damn right you didn’t listen,” he growled. “You were reckless and selfish and arrogant.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh yeah?” he sneered. “You’re sorry you started Armageddon? This kinda thing don’t get forgiven, boy.”

“Bobby,” Danielle said.

“Don’t you ‘Bobby’ me!” His eyes were piercing, and he thrust an arm in her direction. “He started the damn end of the world!” Sam’s shoulders were pitching now, and she could hear his quick, ragged breaths. “If by some miracle we pull this off, I want you to lose my number. Understand me?”

Sam only nodded. Danielle looked to Dean, hoping we would say something, but he was quiet. “There’s an old church nearby. Maybe I’ll go read some of the lore books there.”

“Yeah. You do that.”

Danielle followed him. Dean tried to call her back, but she ignored him. Sam held the door for her, and she almost regretted leaving as the icy cold air mussed up her hair. He handed her his jacket, and she gladly took it though it hung down to her knees. “You wanna change?” he asked.

She shook her head. Even though she was wearing a tank-top, with the jacket she felt plenty fine. “Want me to drive?”

“I’m just gonna walk.”

There was a moment of silence. “Sam-”

“Don’t. There’s nothing to say. He was right.”

“Maybe, but he had no right to say those things to you.”

Sam’s face scrunched up. “How? He has every right. This is my fault.”

“Ruby tricked you-”

“She didn’t force me to drink demon blood. She didn’t force me to kill Lilith. I made those decisions.”

Danielle didn’t know what to say to that, so she went back to Bobby. “He’s your family, Sam. He’ll come around.”

All he gave in answer was a soft, sardonic smile.

The chapel’s library was a little scarce to say the least, with nothing that they hadn’t read before. There was certainly nothing about a castle on a hill of forty-two dogs, so after enough time had passed for Sam to calm down, they made their way back to the motel.

Danielle paused a few doors down. “Do you hear that?”

Sam hesitated, listening. He heard the muffled banging and shouts coming from their room and took off, Danielle right on his heels. They barged in on chaos: the room was ripped apart, a man pummeling Dean into the floor. Further away, Bobby laid unconscious, blood seeping into the carpet. A girl turned her attention to Sam, dark eyes lighting up with a sadistic pleasure before he lunged.

No one seemed to notice Danielle in the doorway. For a long time, she couldn’t move. Terror froze her limbs, locking her in place. But she couldn’t, not now; as the girl slammed Sam against the wall, and Dean was still suffering underneath the man’s fists, she moved towards Bobby. She ran past all of them and yanked the knife from his belly and slid it across the floor to Dean.

He killed the man, and his body flashed from the inside. His bones cast long shadows across the floor before he fell over dead, steam rising from his corpse. 

Dean and Danielle turned to the other demon. She didn’t hesitate throwing her head back and letting the thick, black smoke stream from her mouth.

Danielle fell to her knees beside Bobby, pressing her hands hard against the wound. He stirred, groaned, and then was out again. Dean took her place and she checked his pulse and his pupils. “He needs a hospital now,” she said, and the boys hoisted him up.

She kept pressure on the wound all the way to the E.R. before handing him over to the doctors. They tried to go in with him, but a nurse pushed them back. “We gotta go,” Dean said.

“No. No way.”

“The demons know where the sword is, Sammy,” Dean persisted. “We gotta go.”

“I’ll stay,” Danielle offered, and the boys took off. She fended off questions from police and hospital staff alike, making up some insane story about how her poor uncle was walking around and got mugged and called her older brother instead of the cops. She was nervous all the while, waiting for news on Bobby’s surgery or for Sam and Dean to call.

When the third doctor of the night approached, she tried her best not to vomit as she met him halfway. “Danielle Thompson?” She could only nod. “The surgery was successful. Mr. Thompson is steady for now, but we’ll need to keep him a couple days to monitor him. The bad news is that it’s likely he’ll never walk again. We’ll have to verify that once he’s awake, but it’s pretty much a done deal.”

She nodded. “When… When can I…”

“You can go back there now if you want. It’ll be easier hearing the news from someone he knows.”

It wasn’t. Bobby took it as well as he would have from anyone, and Danielle was honestly worried he would throw something at her in his fury. The doctor tried to tell him too, but he soon fled the room as Bobby chased him out shouting curses from the bed.

The boys came a few hours later, once Bobby was mostly calmed down, and announced that Dean was the Michael sword. As in, he was Michael’s ‘true and perfect’ vessel. Michael needed his body in order to stop the apocalypse. And Cas was actually alive.

“Speaking of,” Sam said, cutting his glance towards Danielle as Dean told them about how the archangels must have missed Cas with their laser beam. “Where was your archangel?”

Everyone else realized at the same time that he was right; that there had been no divine intervention, even though Danielle had run into a room full of demons. “Hell,” Dean mumbled. “I guess that means we really do have to teach you to shoot.”

Castiel showed up a couple days later. Danielle was glad to see him, alive and whole and unharmed. If he was glad to see her, he didn’t act like it; he met her wide grin with slightly narrowed eyes and silence.

“Well, what are you waitin’ for?” Bobby demanded, speaking more than he had in the past three days combined. “Come over here and lay your damn hands on me. Get healin’!”

Castiel stepped into the room and hesitated. “I can’t.”

Bobby slowly and clumsily turned the wheelchair, and Danielle had to look away from his angered expression. “Say again?”

“I’m cut off from Heaven, Heaven’s power. Certain things I can do, certain things I can’t.”

“You’re telling me you lost your mojo just in time for me to get stuck like this for the rest of my life?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shove it up your ass.” He turned back to the window.

“At least he’s talking now,” Dean mumbled.

“I heard that.”

They shared a glance before the boys grouped up. Danielle squeezed in between Sam and Dean. “I don’t have much time,” Castiel said. “We need to talk. Your plan? To kill Lucifer?”

“Yeah, you wanna help?”

Dean barely had time to even ask before Cas shot him down. “No. It’s foolish; it can’t be done.”

“Well, thanks for the support.”

He ignored Dean’s quip. “But I believe I have the solution. There is someone stronger than Michael, strong enough to stop Lucifer and the apocalypse.”

“And who’s that?” Sam asked.

“The one who resurrected me and put you on that airplane. The one who began everything: God. I’m gonna find God.”

Dean shut the door. “God?”

“Yes.”

“ _ God _ .”

“Yes,” Castiel persisted. “He isn’t in Heaven. He has to be somewhere.”

“Try New Mexico, I hear he’s on a tortilla.”

Danielle snorted, and Sam shot her a look. “No, he’s not on any flatbread,” Castiel said, confused.

“Listen, Chuckles, if there even is a God, he’s either dead, and that’s the generous theory -”

“He  _ is _ out there, Dean -”

“Or, he’s up and kicking and doesn’t give a rat’s ass about any of us.”

“Dean,” Danielle said; such blatant blasphemy made her uncomfortable. Castiel glared at him.

“I mean, look around y’all, the world is in the toilet. We are literally at the end of days here, and he’s off somewhere drinking booze out of coconut.”

“Enough,” Castiel growled. “This is not a theological issue. It’s strategic. With God’s help, we can win.”

“It’s a pipe dream, Cas.”

That sent the angel over the edge. He stepped dangerously close to Dean, only inches from his face, his eyes brimming with a cold fury. “I killed two angels this week,” he said. “Those are my brothers. I’m hunted, I rebelled, and I did it - all of it - for you, and you failed. You three destroyed the world, and I lost everything, for nothing.

“So keep your opinions to yourself,” he whispered.

That shut Dean up. Danielle was just happy she wasn’t on the receiving end of the angel’s scathing glare.

“You didn’t drop by just to tear us a new hole. What is it you want?”

“An amulet. Very rare, very powerful. It glows hot in God’s presence. It will help me find him.”

“What, like God EMF?” Sam asked.

“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bobby said. “I got nothing like that.”

“I know you don’t.” Castiel’s gaze dropped to Dean’s chest.

“What, this?”

“May I borrow it?”

“No!”

“Dean, give it to me.”

It took Dean a moment, but he reluctantly handed it over with strict orders not to lose it.

“Wait,” Sam said, catching the angel before he could disappear. “Danielle wasn’t with us, so she needs her ribs to be branded too.”

Everyone looked at her, and she circled her arms around her middle and stepped back. “My ribs are fine, thanks,” she said. She didn’t know what he was talking about, but it didn’t sound too pleasant.

Castiel faced her and reached out a hand. She stepped further away. “This will hide you from the angels.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Dean said.

She didn’t believe him for a second, but she let Cas approach. He pressed his hand against her chest, and instantly she felt like she’d been burned. She yelped and jumped away, panting. “Liar!” she snapped at Dean. He only shrugged.

“The archangels won’t be able to find you now,” Castiel said.

_ Like they cared before,  _ she thought, but Castiel was gone before any of them could say anything else.

Bobby got a call from his friend Rufus a couple hours later, and the boys left to go help the hunt. Which left Danielle alone with Bobby, who, in his boredom, was determined to have her know the ins and outs of hunting by the time they returned. He quizzed her on exorcisms, drilled her on what killed what monster, had her draw devil’s traps and the angel-warding sigil until her hand cramped.

It was for the best, she knew. She didn’t have an angel tethered to her anymore. Whatever trouble she got into, she would be expected to get out of on her own. It was a long shot, and she knew it would be a while before she could even go with the boys on hunts, but she was eager to learn. If she couldn’t hunt, then maybe she could help others like Bobby did.

Either way, she swallowed whatever irritation she felt and learned as much as she could.


	10. the wild adventures of dan, dean, and cas

_ “but the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.” – Deuteronomy 18:20 _

 

“Exorcism. Go.”

Danielle tapped the end of her pen on her journal, eyes on the ceiling. She said the chant, slowly and clumsily, only tripping over a few words but remembering the whole thing. Grinning, she turned to the old hunter for praise.

Instead, she was scolded for her mispronouncing some of the words and tweaked on her accent. All in all though, they both knew she was improving.

“Devil’s trap.”

She drew it on a spare page in her journal, proudly showing it off.

He nodded. “Now the other one.”

She gaped, dropping her journal back onto the table. “What do I need to know that one for, it’s a thousand times harder! I know this one.”

“Yeah, it’s harder, but it traps stronger demons. Quit being lazy and draw the damn thing.”

“Seems like you two are gettin’ along fine.”

Danielle grinned at Dean leaning in the doorway. Her smile faded though, a knot tying in her stomach. “Where’s Sam?”

Dean frowned, uncomfortable. “He… We decided to part ways for a little while.”

Danielle shared a disbelieving look with Bobby, who was clearly on his way to a lecture. “Are you kiddin’ me?” he demanded, his anger every bit as impressive from his wheelchair as it had been standing up. If anything, it was more frightening like this; he could run over a toe. “It’s the end of the world,  _ boy _ , and you’re givin’ up what precious little time left, for what? Because the road got a little bumpy? You better buckle up, kid, ‘cause it ain’t gonna get any easier from here on out.”

He looked at Danielle. “What, you’re not gonna defend me? Nothing?”

“Uh, he’s right.”

Dean rolled his eyes and shrugged away from the doorframe. “Well, I was just letting y’all know. See ya around.”

“Wait!” Danielle exclaimed, jumping up and chasing him out into the hallway. “Where are you going?”

He shrugged. “Might be a vamp over in Pennsylvania.”

“A hunt?” she asked, eyebrows raised. “You’re gonna go hunt vampires while the world is ending?”

“Can’t think of a better way to go.”

She smiled. “Shouldn’t we be… I don’t know, doing something else? Like, waiting around for the devil or something?”

He snapped and pointed at her. “You do that, I’m gonna go kill some things.”

“What about me?”

He furrowed his brow. “You’re gonna stay here with Bobby. What? You’re doing such a good job. I mean, you’re a wheel help.”

She laughed. “You’re terrible. But when are you gonna teach me how to shoot? You’ve been saying you will for, like, three months! I don’t have to actually hunt; I can do interviews and research and stuff.  _ Please _ .”

He held out against her doe eyes for a couple seconds before giving in. “Okay, okay! Would you stop that?” He shivered his shoulders, messing with his collar. “It’s just creepy. Yes, fine, you can go.”

They swung by Bobby’s house to gather supplies (cash) and for a quick shooting lesson. It quickly devolved into a Guns 101 course, seeing as how Danielle had hardly even  _ held _ a gun before, let alone shot one. She managed to get a few shots off, and they left after she finally hit one of the glass bottles they’d set up.

As far as the hunting went, they made a pretty excellent team, if Danielle said so herself. He handled the heavy lifting, and she handled the lore. She was quickly catching on to Dean’s shooting lessons, which they squeezed in between dressing up as FBI agents and swinging by greasy burger joints.

Danielle loved every minute of it.

Dean enjoyed being able to relax a little, considering she was never there for any of the dangerous parts. He got to decapitate the vamp, or torch the rugaru, and know that Danielle was far away and safe from any harm. It was a little freeing, to say the least.

Besides, the girl was just good company. She laughed at all of Dean’s jokes, and she seemed to have some sixth sense that let her know whenever he was upset. If he didn’t respond to her humor, she would give him some space, which he appreciated more than words allowed. She was almost a doctor too and her mediocre medical skills came in handy more than once.

Dean was scrubbing the blood out of his jacket while Danielle was making them sandwiches when Castiel appeared. As usual, he scared Danielle, and the girl squeezed the mustard bottle so hard that the cap popped off. It ricocheted off the counter and hit her cheek and mustard went everywhere.

Dean laughed. “Man, I hate mustard too,” she said, frowning at her now-yellow shirt.

“Sorry,” Castiel said.

She only nodded, grimacing as she tried to wipe up the mess.

“So, how’s the hunt for God going?” Dean asked once he was composed.

“Not well,” Castiel answered. “But there is word of someone who might know where He is.”

“Who?” Danielle asked, tying her hair into a bun.

“The archangel Raphael.”

“Oh, so we’re going after a teenage mutant ninja turtle?” Pause for Danielle’s amused snort.

“This is an incredibly rare opportunity,” Castiel explained. “This is the first time he’s been seen in a vessel in thousands of years. I need your help. Both of you,” he added, glancing at the girl who was gagging at the smell of the mustard.

“Why?” Dean asked.

“Because you’re the Michael vessel, and you’re the prophet. They’d never hurt you.”

“Oh, so we’re shields now?” Dean accused.

“Also because you two are the only ones who will help me.”

Danielle’s heart panged. Her and Dean’s gazes met, and he sighed. “Fine. So where is ole Ralphy?”

“Maine.” Cas raised his fingers, reaching for Dean’s brow.

“Whoa!” Dean batted the angel’s hand away. “Last time you did that, I didn’t poop for a week. We’re driving.”

“Shotgun!” Danielle called, grabbing her bag and sprinting out the door.

“A shotgun would be very ineffective against an archangel,” Castiel explained to both humans as they followed her out the door.

Danielle burst out laughing. “She knows that, she means… Nevermind.” Dean shook his head, leaving her to explain the concept of shotgun to the angel.

Castiel only stayed in the car for a little while; eventually, the confines of the backseat got a little too claustrophobic for him and he disappeared. At least, that was Danielle’s interpretation of his sudden vanishing act. Dean thought it had something to do with belting along to  _ Back in Black  _ by AC/DC three times in a row.

They found an abandoned house in the city Castiel directed them to. As they entered, Dean grinned at the disdainful glances Danielle was throwing around the house. “Not up to your standards, huh princess?”

“It would be really cool if it were clean. And the bugs were gone.”

Castiel appeared again, though he popped in on the other side of the house. Even so, Danielle flinched. “I tried,” he said.

“You give me anxiety,” she pointed out. “Where’d you go?”

“Jerusalem.” He set an ancient-looking vase down on the table.

“No way!”

Castiel furrowed his brow, confused. “Yes, I did.”

“What was it like?” Dean asked.

“Arid,” he retorted and took a seat. She carefully examined the vase as Castiel explained its use. As its importance came to light, she quickly set it back down, not trusting herself not to break it.

“So, what are the chances of us surviving this?” Dean asked.

“For you two, it’s certain. For me there is no chance.”

“You’ll be alright,” Danielle said. “You always are.”

He looked at her strangely for a moment before Dean said, “So, your last night. What are your plans?”

“I was going to sit here quietly,” he answered, as if doing anything else was completely out of the question.

“No booze? Women?”

Castiel quickly looked away.

“Wait. You have been with a woman, right?”

The angel rubbed his neck, clearly uncomfortable with the subject change. “I’ve never had occasion.”

“Oh my-” Dean broke off, turning his gaze to Danielle. “You have, right?”

She wrinkled her nose. “What do you think?”

“Well, why don’t the two of you, you know.” He smirked. “And get it over with.”

Castiel went pale, but Danielle’s cheeks flushed red enough for the both of them. “You’re disgusting.”

“Okay, fine. Well, I’m gonna go get Cas laid. We’ll meet you at the mental hospital down the street at ten o’clock?” When Danielle nodded, the two left. She grabbed a bus ride into the city, stopping at a fast food place before heading to the hospital. They were right on time, and after Dean, breathless with laughter, recounted the story of Castiel’s massive screw up at the brothel, they tried to summon the archangel. 

When it became obvious that Raphael wasn’t going to show up at the hospital to retrieve his last vessel, they returned to the house. Danielle led the way into the building, telling them all about this one friend she had in college who religiously did not believe in wearing pants. She made it about a step into the room before something wrapped around her waist, picking her clean off her feet and swinging her around. She shrieked, staring at Castiel’s back, which was now in front of her.

“Raphael,” the angel called.

A loud clap of thunder shook the house, rattling the windows as the skies opened up and rain poured down in sheets.

“And here I thought you were supposed to be impressive,” Dean said, shouldering his way so that he was also in front of Danielle. “All you do is blackout a room?”

“And the entire eastern seaboard.”

Something about the archangel set her on edge, something about his voice froze her in place. It was terrifying, and the vessel that had previously seemed helpless and small was now towering over them all. She was glad that the two men were in front of her, and she tried to cower out of the angel’s sight.

“It’s a testament to my mercy that I don’t smite you right here,” he said. The howl of the wind sent shivers down Danielle’s spine, and she was starting to feel very light-headed.

“Or you’re just full of crap,” Dean said. “Maybe you’re afriad God’ll bring Cas back, and smite you in your candy-ass skirt.”

Danielle let out a tiny noise that was a mix between someone choking and a small animal being strangled. Once Raphael had looked away, Dean glanced at the girl. 

“What’s stopping me from taking you directly to Michael?” Raphael threatened.

“Hate to tell ya, but I’m not goin’ anywhere with you,” Dean said.

“Surely you remember Zachariah giving you stomach cancer? He doesn’t have anywhere close to my … imagination.”

Danielle closed her eyes and swayed on her feet. She was dizzy. “I bet you didn’t imagine one thing,” Dean said. “We knew you were coming, you stupid son of a bitch.”

He dropped the match, and Danielle didn’t open her eyes until she heard the crackling of the fire. Raphael could have been carved from stone, but his eyes were a sea of rage and hatred.

“Where is He?” Castiel demanded.

“God? Haven’t you heard?” The fire cast an eerie glow on his shadowed face. “He’s dead, Castiel.”

A loud crack of thunder echoed his words. The house quivered. Danielle’s heart sank.

“Dead.”

“N-No, He’s not,” she said. “He can’t be.”

“And the little mouse finds her voice,” Raphael said. Her sudden bout of courage was gone as quickly as it appeared. “There is no other explanation. Do you remember the twentieth century? Do you think the twenty first is going any better? You think God would have let that all happen if He were still alive?”

Whatever was said next was lost to the girl; the blood rushing in her ears was too loud to hear anything over, and cold tendrils of panic were wrapping around her heart.  _ God can’t die _ , she reminded herself.  _ He created everything, He created death, He cannot die. _

Suddenly, the window shattered, and Danielle found herself cocooned between Castiel and Dean. Within a few seconds, they were all soaked, and Dean had to detach her shaking fingers from their white-knuckled grip on his flannel.

“If God is dead, who brought me back?” Castiel challenged. He had to shout to be heard over the wind.

Raphael, however, did not need to shout. His voice remained as quiet as ever, though it pounded through the room. “Have you ever considered that maybe it was the work of Lucifer? He needs all the rebellious angels he can get.”

“You’re  _ wrong _ ,” Danielle shouted, her voice breaking.

“Am I?” he asked.

“I would have seen it,” she said. The ends of her hair whipped around in the wind, stinging as they smacked her in the face.

“You haven’t even realized have you? We took away your power. You misused them; you are no longer a prophet.”


	11. 2014

_ “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” - Jeremiah 29:11 _ __ __

 

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Dean sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He was clearly uncomfortable. “C’mon, Dan. I know I’m not as mushy as my brother, but it’s obvious it’s bugging you.”

That was an understatement. The angels might as well have kicked her out of Heaven; there was a neon sign above her head screaming blasphemous. All her life, she’d prayed to be used by God in some way, and now that she was, she’d abused her powers and they had taken it away. 

_ They did,  _ she reminded herself. Not God, the angels. They were working on their own prerogative. She just shook her head and Dean huffed out another breath and gave up.

It wasn’t long before Danielle was lulled to sleep. Dean turned down the Metallica tape, drumming his fingers on the wheel and mouthing along to the words to keep himself awake. Finally, he had to call it quits and pulled into a hotel in Ohio.

He shook Danielle, who was curled beneath his jacket. She raised her head, blinking bleary doe eyes at him. “We’re here,” he said.

It took her a moment, as if she wasn’t hearing what he was saying, before she nodded and rubbed her face. He clambered out, shouldering both of their bags. Danielle clutched his jacket around her shoulders, hair pushed up around the collar.

“Excuse me, friend, have you considered God’s plan for you?”

This kind of telemarketing was ridiculous to begin with, especially considering it was two or three in the morning. Dean only shook his head and scoffed, shepherding Danielle away from the man. “Too friggin’ much.”

As soon as they got inside, Danielle collapsed on the bed. She didn’t even bother getting under the covers, using Dean’s jacket to keep her warm. She was asleep almost instantly.

Dean sighed before his phone rang. He talked to Cas for a little while, shutting the curtains and getting Danielle underneath the quilt. He had just managed to fall asleep when Sam called and broke the news that just like Dean was Michael’s true vessel, Sam was Lucifer’s.

When he woke again, he was in a totally different universe.

 

//

 

Dean jimmied the lock on the chainlink fence before going to marvel at the destruction done to his baby. She was totally wrecked, windows smashed in and upholstery ruined. He ran a hand over the scratched and dented metal in utter despair.

What kind of monstrous future was this?

In the blink of an eye, he found himself pinned to the ground. Pain flashed up his back before he heard a loud hiss from above him. Danielle’s fingers dug into his shoulders, and she bared her fangs at him. And then he was unconscious.

When he woke, he was handcuffed. He pulled, but neither the metal of the cuffs nor the ladder he was chained to budged. He turned, and saw…  _ him. _

“What the hell?”

“I should be asking you that,” the other Dean retorted. He did not look happy.

“Look, I’m not a shifter.”

“I know. While you were out we went through all the motions: silver, salt, holy water. Nothing.” Before Dean could say anything, the other one’s gaze caught something behind him. He groaned and dropped his head. “I thought I told you to stay outside.”

Dean watched as Danielle - the strange, new version of her - strode into the room. Everything was odd about her: her eyes were dark, darker than he had ever seen them, and she walked differently. More confident. Tougher. Even the way she dressed was different. Instead of the normal shirt and jeans, she wore dark flannel beneath a leather jacket.

She looked like a hunter.

“Well, hey, Twilight,” Dean said bitterly.

She didn’t respond. Her lips were pinched down in a frown, and her brows furrowed over her eyes. Something told Dean that she didn’t quite smile as much as she used to. Does. Whatever.

Other Dean angled towards the girl and lowered his voice. “Can you tell me anything?”

“He smells like you,” she said. Even  _ her voice  _ was different. It was quieter, less inflected. Cold and detached.

“What’s strange is he has all the same lock picks and cutters I have,” the other him said. Danielle didn’t answer that, only kept her creepy stare on Dean.

“Zach sent me.”

That got them to look at each other. “Freakin’ angels,” he mumbled, but Danielle’s jaw had set. Her eyes flashed, but Dean couldn’t tell from what. Nothing good, he supposed.

“So,” he said, fidgeting underneath their scrutiny. “Croatoan virus?” He had seen the zombies, had spent half the morning yesterday running from them.

Dean nodded and stood, loading his machine gun. “Lucifer’s plan to wipe out the human race. Started hitting the major cities a couple years ago before it spread out.”

“And Sam?”

Danielle blinked. The other Dean looked away, swallowing his anger before explaining that Sam had agreed to be Lucifer’s vessel in Detroit. Dean’s stomach twisted with horror, watching as the other him shouldered his gun and headed for the door. “Where are you going?”

“On an errand,” came the answer. He turned to the vampire who hadn’t moved. “You comin’?”

“He should come with us.”

“No. Coming or not?”

She pulled him aside and started to whisper. Dean leaned as far forward as the handcuff would allow, straining to hear what they were saying. Danielle’s face remained impassive, except for the few twitches at her brows and lips to indicate her irritation. Finally, he scowled and turned away, and Danielle moved to him.

“What happened to you?” Dean asked.

That didn’t make her happy. She snapped the metal off his wrist with a single movement, yanking him up to his feet. She pushed him forward, and he found himself sandwiched between the broodier future version of himself and Danielle: Vampire Diaries edition.

“Keep your heads down,” he ordered. They kept to the edges of camp, winding their way through back alleys and finally ending up at the edge of a patch of forest. “The last thing we need is another version of the Parent Trap.”

Dean struggled through the forest. The other Dean, while looking more at home, wasn’t doing much better. Danielle however stepped as lightly as a deer, making no noise despite the clunky combat boots she wore. Without a word, she suddenly took off, leaving the two of them alone.

Dean marched to his twin’s side. “Dude, what the  _ hell _ ?”

“It’s just a few trees. You’ll be fine.”

Deflecting. Dean had perfected that trick. “I mean Danielle. How-” He was speechless for a moment, struggling to find  _ anything _ to express what he was feeling. “What the hell? What  _ happened _ ?”

He looked put off, like he was irritated that Dean would even think to bring up the subject. He readjusted the duffel bag on his shoulder, face set in stone. “Life.”

“Life?” Dean repeated with a snort. “That’s it? That’s all I get? ‘Life’. She’s a damn monster, and you’re just letting her walk around free-”

“Yeah, maybe,” the other version of him said. There was so much bitterness in his words that it was hard to believe that he hadn’t put her down already. “But she’s the only family I have left.”

What family was she? She didn’t hardly speak, didn’t seem to have emotions. She seemed full on monster, complete with a set of fangs and no heart. “Man, what are you doing?”

It was like a switch. In a heartbeat, his future self was in his face. A finger prodded into his chest, and Dean took a step back. “Don’t. You don’t know me, and you don’t know her. This is my world, and you follow my rules. If I want her alive, she  _ stays _ alive.”

“This isn’t her. It’s not right.”

Dean readjusted the gun on his shoulder before shaking his head. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I wish I could tell you to keep her away from him, but I don’t think it’ll help.”

His twin gave a humorless laugh, and Dean was left blindsided. He glanced around, as if the answer was going to emerge from the woods. “What the hell are you talking about? Who?”

There was a loud rustling, and something wrapped hard around his stomach. Suddenly he was flying, the ground zipping beneath him. Everything was a blur, and before he could realize that he was moving, he had stopped again.

“What the hell?” Dean mumbled, reaching up to clasp his aching head.

There was another shadowed blur, and Danielle and other Dean were standing in front of him. “I told you to stop doing that,” he spat at the vampire.

“You were taking too long,” she said, climbing into the driver’s seat of the nearest jeep. Other Dean got into the passenger seat, leaving the back for Dean.

He didn’t realize they were going after the Colt until they’d actually gotten the gun. The amount of demons and Croatoans - “Croats” as they were so affectionately called in the future - was next to unreal. They would never have gotten through them all if it weren’t for Danielle; her speed and strength paired with her hunter abilities made her incredibly deadly and efficient. Plus, the virus didn’t affect her, so she could fight without abandon.

When the other Dean met them back in the foyer of the small house with the Colt, Dean gaped at him. “We came here for that? Why?”

“We’re gonna kill the devil,” Other Dean said, as calmly as if he were stating a fact. They strode out of the house, heading back through the neighborhood toward the jeep. “That seem a little too easy to you?”

Danielle answered with an uneasy glance to their surroundings. She kept breathing heavily, as if she were constantly smelling, and her bloody fingers twitched at her sides.

They were within sight of the car when Danielle suddenly stiffened.

He blinked and he was alone. There was a boom from behind, and he turned to see. He blinked again and something yanked him back. There was a flash of red and orange and white, and a wave of heat knocked him down. The something grabbed his shoulder and pinned him to the ground.

The explosion shook the ground, and the car rocked and slid from the blast wave. As the sky returned to its usual blue and the deafening boom faded, all Dean could hear was a high-pitched ringing noise. Danielle, who had shielded him with her body, stood and pushed the Jeep as if it were nothing but a rock.

She stumbled. She shook her head roughly, reaching down and pulling the other Dean to his feet. She caught him as he staggered, and he jerked away to lean against the jeep.

One of the many cars that had been parked on the side of the road down the street was now on fire, thick clouds of smoke billowing into the air. A hand appeared in his vision, and he let Danielle pull him up. Every movement smarted with pain; his body was scraped up, and rocks and other pieces of debris had embedded in his body.

He watched as a cut on her cheek healed, the skin knitting itself back together as if it had never been there.

When the ringing noise faded, he realized that all the alarms of all the cars down the street were going off. “Shit,” Danielle whispered.

“Dan, get the car. We’ll cover you.” He glanced at the past version of himself and spat. “I  _ told _ you he shouldn’t have come!”

“I didn’t realize it would be this dangerous,” she shot back.

“What, did you think we were going to Disneyland?” he argued.

She gritted her teeth and was gone in a flash. Both Deans turned down the street, and Dean’s stomach dropped at the army of zombies making their way down the street. There were enough to make an entire wall across the road, with more pouring out from the houses.

The jeep was there, and Danielle yanked him inside. She slammed the car into reverse, the jeep bouncing as it ran over a few croats. As she whirled it around, zombies started to throw themselves into the car. Dean jumped away from the snapping jaws, shooting as many as he could.

The drive back was tense. The future him couldn’t keep still, twitching and checking that his gun was loaded about a thousand times. Danielle’s hands were so tight on the wheel that when she let go her fingers had left dents.

By the time they got back, the sun had already risen, shining behind a thick layer of clouds. They went to Dean’s cabin, Danielle leaving in a hurry with gritted teeth and a “I need to hunt.”

“That was close,” Dean said.

The other him glared. “Do you know why she wanted you to go? She wanted you to see how bad it is. It’s full on Apocalypto out there, and it’s not gonna get any better. I lost my brother, lost Bobby and Cas and…” He broke off, chest pitching as he took in a ragged breath, consumed by a sudden onslaught of emotion. “All because you were too cowardly to say yes.”

Was it true? Was all this his fault? Is this what Zachariah wanted him to see, a world where he lost everything?

The other Dean snatched up his jacket and gun and stormed out. Without supervision, Dean started to explore.

His cabin was a mess, with wadded up clothes pushed against the walls to keep them out of the way. Empty beer cans and food packages were scattered around the floor, and his bed had a single sheet that was tangled at the bottom.

On the bedside table, there was the picture of him and Sam with his mom. That gave him a little relief; even if this future version of him was an asshole, at least he wasn’t a heartless asshole.

_ Sam gives in,  _ a tiny voice said. He pushed the thought down. He couldn’t afford to think about that, not now. He had to keep his head level. If he hadn’t already shouted for the angels ‘til he was blue in the face, he might have tried again. What else did they want him to see? What else was there here for him?

There was another picture beside it of Castiel and Danielle. They were standing together, Danielle flashing one of those dazzling smiles at the camera. Castiel’s eyes, however, were focused on her. A small smile pulled at his lips as well.

_ No way, _ he thought. But it was impossible to deny: their arms were wrapped around each other’s waist, and both of them were so happy, so relaxed, so blatantly in love. Was this the him the other Dean had told him to keep her away from? It had to be. ‘He’ was  _ Cas. _

His closet was amazingly spare, with only a few shirts and another jacket. Most of it was full of weapons and spare boxes of ammo. There were a few girl’s clothes inside, but it all would have fit Danielle. She must have left them over the years and he’d just collected them in the closet.

The door shut. Dean jumped and whirled around, but it was just her. Her eyes were dark and hard, and there was a bit of fresh blood on her shirt. Dean scowled, pointing at it. “You, uh, have a nice long drink from poor Timmy?”

“What do you care?” she snapped.

He didn’t know which he liked better: the cold version of her, or this hostile one. “I care because it’s my job to put down monsters.”

Her lips twitched up into a humorless smirk. “And you’re doing such a good job. How’s stopping Lucifer going?”

He paused. “I haven’t-”

“Done anything. I know. You never do anything, not until it’s too late.” There was a half-drank whiskey bottle on the windowsill, and she drowned the whole thing in one long swallow. She drug her mouth across the sleeve of her jacket. “You could have saved us, you know. All of us. I wouldn’t be a vampire, and Cas wouldn’t be-”

Her chest pitched, and she looked at the now empty bottle in despair. She tipped it back, hoping to catch more than the few drops that actually fell.

“You loved him.”

For a moment, he was worried she would hit him. Her hand tightened on the neck of the bottle until it shattered, glass cutting her palm and smacking against the floor. Dean stepped forward, but she stepped away, cradling the hand. Within seconds, it was healed as if nothing had happened. She wiped the blood on her jeans.

“If you had just…” She was staring at the floor now, and her body swayed. “If you had said yes, he would still be with me. We could still…”

“How did it happen?”

She knew what he was talking about. She knew it, and he knew she knew. Her eyes blinked, long and slow before finding his again, and there was an intensity there that he hadn’t seen since he arrived. “You have to say yes. For all of our sakes.  _ Please.  _ We don’t deserve this, they didn’t deserve to die.”

He only swallowed, hard, before there was a knock at the door. Danielle opened it to a woman. “We’re meeting now,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the past Dean. Danielle watched him again for a moment, and he could see straight through her. Where before she had seemed cold, strong, deadly, he could see now that was the furthest from the truth. She was broken, all the way down the middle, and it made his heart ache. They walked together to the meeting.

“Lucifer is here, now.” The future Dean set the map down on the ground, tapping the red circle he’d scrawled down.

“That’s right in the middle of a hot zone,” Risa pointed out, jaw slack with shock.

“Crawling with Croats, yeah,” he growled without any further explanation. “Are you coming or not?”

Risa just shook her head, letting out a scoff before rubbing her face. “Yeah, sure, whatever. I’ll go get everyone else.” She headed for the door, pausing next to Danielle. “You coming?”

They set out, and past Dean drove while Danielle sat solemnly in the passenger seat. It was a quiet drive; all of Dean’s attempts at conversation were ignored. After a while, he stopped trying.

They made it to the building, all crouching behind an overturned car. The future Dean peered through his binoculars, and Dean wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he was lying. He called for a private council, and the two Deans headed off into the woods.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Dean demanded.

His future self blinked. “What?”

“I know you. I know your lying expressions; I’ve seen them in the mirror.” Dean snorted, jaw clenched as he glanced away from his doppelganger. “Now you’re lying to these people, and to me. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” his twin shot back, and Dean felt rage rise up in his chest. Why did he have to be such a pain in the ass?

“Oh, really? Well, I don’t seem to be the only one with doubts, so maybe I’ll just ask them what they think.” Dean only had to take a few steps back towards the car before his twin stopped him.

“Look around you,” he stated with reluctance. “This place should be white-hot with Croats. Where are they?”

Dean felt his stomach drop. “So this must be a trap. We can’t just go in through the front door!”

“Oh, we’re not.” Dean’s eyes were cold and detached, and his expression was blank in a way that made the hairs rise on the back of Dean’s neck. “ _ They _ are. They’re the decoys. You and me, we’re going in through the back.”

Dean couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You mean… You’re going to feed your friends into the _meat grinder?_ _Dan too?_ ”

His future self snorted. “You think Danielle cares? Listen to me; you get back, if you don’t say yes, then you better keep those two apart. You wanna know why she changed? Because of  _ him. _ They both died because they couldn’t keep their damn hands off each other.”

“No, because of  _ you _ ,” Dean growled. “ _ You’re _ the one who’s about to chop her up. Don’t wash your hands of this; you’re just as guilty!”

“Aren’t you listening to me?” he demanded. “He’s the reason she  _ turns,  _ and she’s the reason he’s dead. Keep them  _ apart. _ ”

Dean snorted, shaking his head. “Why should I listen to anything you say, you selfish bastard?”

“Because I’m you,” the future Dean spat, mirroring his twin’s fury. “And the only person you trust,  _ one hundred percent _ , is me.”

“I’m not gonna let you,” Dean swore, barely able to control his rage. He wanted to sink his fist into his doppelganger’s face; how could he even  _ think _ that way? Surely this was not Dean; he wouldn’t turn into this person.

“Oh, really?” his twin asked.

He felt a flash of pain before it all went black.

When he woke later, it was raining. He could hear the screams of those who’d sacrificed themselves, almost drowned out by the inhuman shrieks and wails of the zombies. He went the way his other self must have gone, rounding the building to find… Sam. Sam, possessed by Lucifer, killing him.

Zachariah finally appeared later, once Dean felt like his insides had been torn apart, and zapped him back to the motel room. He glared at the angel as he tried to catch his breath. “Well. If it isn’t the ghost of Christmas-screw-you.”

“Enough,” came his simple answer. “Enough, Dean, enough. You saw it, didn’t you? You saw what happens. You’re the only person who can prove the devil wrong. Just say yes.”

Dean’s eyes slid past the angel, falling on the form under the blankets on the far bed. It rose and fell steadily, and Dean let out a exhale of relief. Danielle was  _ there _ , she was  _ alive, _ and sleeping peacefully, unaware of everything around her.

“And how do I know this whole thing isn’t one of your tricks?” Dean demanded. “Huh? Some angel hocus-pocus?”

“The time for tricks is over. Give yourself to Michael. Say  _ yes, _ and we can strike! Before Lucifer gets to Sam, before millions die, before Danielle dies.”

Dean walked past the angel, staring down at the sleeping girl. She was still oblivious, her loud breathing deafening in the tense silence.

He thought of her death, Sam’s death, the devil killing him and then flaunting it in his face. Danielle had begged him, and even he had begged himself, but when had he ever listened to anyone? Tears pricked in the corners of her eyes, and he swallowed against the lump rising in his throat. He’d find a way to save them, but it wouldn’t be the angel’s way. Not now, not ever.

“Nah.”

Zachariah was quiet for a second before he whispered, “Nah? You’re telling me you  _ haven’t _ learned your lesson?”

His voice grew louder with every word, finally enough to wake the girl. She sniffed, rolling onto her side and peeking through her lashes sleepily. Her eyes widened at the sight, and she sat bolt-upright, fear etched onto her face.

“Oh, I learned a lesson alright. Just not the one you wanted to teach.”

Zachariah’s eyes were threatening to pop out of his skull as he took an enraged step forward. “Well then, I’ll have to teach it  _ again _ because I’ve got you now, boy, and I-”

Dean found himself staring at an abandoned, two-lane road. There was a single street lamp casting light on the forest surrounding the road. Confused, he spun around to see Castiel staring at him. He let out a sigh of relief, spotting Danielle on the other side of the angel.

“Pretty nice timing, Cas,” Dean said.

“We had an appointment,” the angel returned, the corners of his lips turned up into a faint smile.

Dean grabbed Castiel’s shoulder. “Don’t ever change.”

“What the heck just happened?” Danielle asked, rubbing her eyes.

Castiel turned, staring intently at the mess of tangled curls that was matted up on one side. “What’s wrong with your hair?”

Even in her half-awake state, she managed to laugh, grinning up at the angel. “Rude,” she said. “How’d Zachariah find us?”

“Long story. Let’s just stay away from Jehovah’s witnesses from now on,” he replied, taking out his cell phone. He glanced at the girl, his eyes lingering on her for a second, an affectionate expression on his face.

She smiled, furrowing her brow. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just good to see you,” he said, holding the phone up to his ear.

“What are you doing?” Cas asked.

“Something I should have done in the first place. Hey, Sam.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW it's been a while. sorry guys!!! i just had my hardest semester yet and boy I barely had time to eat and sleep let alone write/post. thanks for being patient, and i hope this makes up for at least some of it!! enjoy and happy (late) holidays!


	12. children are the future

__

_ “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’” - Matthew 19:13 _

 

Sam shrugged into his jacket.

Dean immediately tensed, studying his brother with narrowed eyes. “Where are you going?”

Sam held back a sigh, his jaw clenching. “To get some food.”

Dean stared at him for a moment longer before deciding it was okay and turning his attention back to the case files they’d conned from the police department. “Get extra fries,” Danielle told him. When the door clicked shut, she turned to the other. “I hope you’re not planning on being like that forever.”

“Like what?”

“ _ On  _ him. Breathing down his neck. You need to give him some space.”

Dean snorted. “Space? Dan, the last time I gave him space, he chose a demon over me and then popped Satan from his hole. I think I get a free pass if I breathe down his neck for a little while.” Agitated now, he stalked to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the cooler.

“Dean,” she started, rising to her feet. He struggled to hold back a groan. He knew that tone, knew the worried expression on her face. He prepared himself for what was coming next. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he answered. “Nothing, I swear.”

“You haven’t been the same since Zachariah showed up in the hotel room,” she argued. “You won’t even tell me what happened.”

“He sent me to the future, okay?” Dean admitted. He set the bottle down and turned, leaning his back against the counter. “It was just a bunch of crap that really doesn’t matter.”

“Clearly it does.” She stood across from him now, arms crossed, the picture of defiance. What she didn’t know is that when she pouted her lips like that, she looked like a bunny rather than coming across as any kind of tough.

She was the total opposite of her future self. Where that girl was cold and empty and monstrous, she was warm and concerned and the epitome of human. There was nothing alike in them, and he might not have even realized it was her if they hadn’t looked the same.

He couldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t turn into that.

“It just shook me up a little bit,” he relented. There was a part of him that felt a strange, almost giddy sense of rebelliousness; he was opening up to her when he could barely stomach to look at Sam. Maybe it was his turn to get jealous. Another part of him scolded him for such a childish thought. They were brothers, after all. Danielle was just more open to listening while they were in a rough spot. That was all. “It’s not a big deal, really.”

“You sure?”

He nodded. “Positive.”

She relaxed, and her eyes flashed as the humor she’d been suppressing came back to the surface. “What was it like? Were there flying cars? T.V.’s you can turn on with your mind?”

Dean chuckled. “You kidding me? Did you forget about the apocalypse, Dan? There were zombies everywhere.”

She nodded slowly, eyes narrowed. “Oh, I see. Walking Dead-style, huh?”

“I wish. It was more Resident Evil, though. You really wanna know what happened? Sam said yes, I was a class A asshole-”

“So much didn’t change for you?”

He rolled his eyes. “Cas was dead, and you were a vampire.”

That gave her pause. “Cas died? How?”

Of course she would gloss over the earth-shattering news of her becoming a monster and focus on the details of a friend. “I don’t know. Nobody would tell me.” He smirked then. “But I do know you were real torn up over it.”

“Well, duh. He’s our friend.”

“He was a little more than a friend for you.”

For a moment she didn’t understand, but then realization dawned on her and she gaped. “Wha- You mean- Me and  _ Cas _ ?”

He shrugged. “He is a handsome devil.”

She threw a pillow at him, cheeks gleaming as red as Rudolph’s nose. “Quit it!”

“Look at that blush. Someone’s got a crush!”  _ He’s the reason she turns, and she’s the reason he’s dead. Keep them apart.  _ Danielle laughed, denying it and covering her face with her hands, and Dean turned and took another sip of his whiskey to hide his expression. She would never end up with Cas; that was just ridiculous, right? Angels didn’t have emotions. Cas was as close as they could get, and he was still pretty damn cold. They don’t know how to love, and Danielle would never fall for someone like that.

Right?

By the time Sam had come back, Danielle had cracked the case. They were hunting a ghost, a nasty one too. They told Sam over their greasy dinner.

As soon as they were done, Dean stood and grabbed the keys. “I’m gonna head out, see if I can get the sheriff to tell me anything else.”

Sam put his tongue in his cheek, but Danielle was confused. “We already know what we’re hunting,” she said. “And where it is, who it is… What else would you need to know?”

Dean deadpanned, sharing a look with his brother. “Explain sex to her, please.” He left, and Sam covered his grin with a napkin.

“Talk about TMI,” she grumbled, cleaning up the mess. Sam grabbed both his and Danielle’s jacket, tossing the girl hers. “What are we doing?” she asked, confused.

“I wanna show you a few things,” Sam said. He pulled his duffel bag out from beneath his bed, setting it on the mattress. He unzipped it, setting a crossbow and quiver on the quilt.

“Whoa,” she breathed.

“Dean’s teaching you how to do guns right? And he’s showing you some martial arts on the side?” Danielle nodded, running her finger over the sleek bow. “Well, I figured I would teach you something a little different. Guns don’t work on a lot of things, and a lot of times they’re a pain in the ass. You’re a little late in the game, so I don’t think you’re gonna be ready to be on the front lines for a while. Stealth is gonna be more your style.”

Her eyes lit up as she picked up the bow. It was heavy and clunky, but she was still excited. She used to shoot little bows when she was younger, but she’d dropped the hobby a long time ago. Besides, stealth sounded like a much better option than running into places guns blazing like the boys. “Let’s go.”

 

***

 

Danielle’s bottom lip was firmly sandwiched between her teeth as she stuck a pin into the keyhole, trying her hardest to pick the lock. Dean had her practice about a hundred times and even bought her her very own lockpicking kit, but she was still pretty rusty.

“I’m surprised you could drag yourself from that ham long enough to actually do something,” Sam said.

She rolled her eyes. There was no reason to waste a perfectly good ham, even if it had been cooked with a joy buzzer instead of an oven.

“Yeah,” Dean added. “You were really pigging out.”

She laughed at that, and the door swung open. Triumphant, she grinned, but her smile quickly faded as a little boy stood in the doorway. He stared up at her with his eyebrows raised. “Hi. Hello. I was just… practicing. Um.” She reached around in her blazer pocket and pulled out her credentials. “I’m Taylor. This is Robert and Murphy; we’re FBI.”

The boy looked unconvinced. “Does the FBI not know how to knock?”

Dean held a hand between his mouth and Danielle. “She’s new,” he whispered.

Danielle shrugged, handing over her badge to the boy with a, “Only if you promise not to make fun of my picture.”

He squinted at the badges, ignoring her joke. After a moment of careful scrutiny he allowed them in. The house was a mess: there were cobwebs in the corners and piles of dirty laundry everywhere. It was starting to really show its age. “Where are your parents?” Danielle asked.  _ And why aren’t they cleaning the house? _

“Work,” he said simply. He pulled a pot off the stove. He was too young to be using a stove.

“What’s that?”

“It’s called soup,” the boy said, taking the pot to the table. “You heat it up and you eat it.”

Danielle and Dean exchanged a glance, and Sam shook his head. “I- I know. I used to make my own dinner too.”

Neglectful parents. Danielle’s heart softened. “Do you mind if I sit?” The boy nodded, and Danielle took a seat as he poured some of the soup into a bowl. “What’s your name?”

“Jessie.”

“Do you make dinner for yourself a lot?”

“When I’m hungry,” he responded coolly.

“What about lunch? Maybe breakfast?”

Jessie paused, the spoon halfway to his mouth, and narrowed his eyes. “Why? What are you doing here?”

“We just have a few questions,” Sam said.

“Jessie, is that what you think the tooth fairy looks like?” Dean held up a picture of a crudely drawn man in a pink tutu with wings.

He nodded. “My dad told me about him.” There was a pause. “What, did your dad not tell you about the tooth fairy?”

Dean snorted. “No, my dad told me different stories.”

“Oh, he’s not a story,” Jessie said with all the confidence of a ten-year-old. “He’s real.”

Dean and Sam looked at each other; clearly they had an idea. “What do you know about itching powder?” Dean asked.

Jessie’s eyes widened. “That stuff’ll make you scratch your brains out!”

“Pop rocks and coke?” Danielle questioned, catching on.

“Mess with that, and you’ll end up in the hospital.” Dean pulled the joy buzzer from his pocket, and the boy took a step back. “You shouldn’t have that. It’ll electrocute you.”

“Actually,” Dean said, “it can’t. Totally harmless. It doesn’t even have batteries.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“It’s really kinda lame. All it does is shake in your hand. See?” He hit Sam in the chest with the buzzer, and both him and Danielle gasped and jumped. But nothing happened, and Sam was fine enough to glare at his brother.

Upon a couple hours of research and a quick trip to city hall, they learned that Jessie was adopted with his birth records sealed. They did manage to get his birth mother’s address, but the revelation that the boy was part demon only added more questions. Bobby had no idea what to make of it, so they turned to their source of all angelic and demonic knowledge: Castiel.

“I’m trying not to scare you.”

It didn’t work. As usual, Danielle’s heart leapt, and she jumped so violently that she knocked her knees against the bottom of the table. She dropped her head into her hands, giving herself a moment to catch her breath.

“My apologies,” Castiel said from where he’d suddenly appeared in the room.

“Well,” she said, grabbing the few pages of notes that had fallen onto the ground and restacking them. “At least I’m not tired anymore.” Castiel didn’t smile, just moved into the kitchen and watched her with bright blue eyes. “Find God yet?”

“No, not yet.”

A pause. “Do you, uh, do you want something to drink? We have a ham if you’re hungry.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Angels don’t require any sustenance. Where are Sam and Dean?”

“They went to get some food. You can sit if you want. Or do your legs not get tired?”

“They don’t,” he said, missing the tease but sitting regardless.

“Are you here about the boy?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. When he didn’t elaborate, Danielle spread her hands out in a  _ what gives?  _ “I should probably wait until Sam and Dean return. What were you doing?”

“Trying - and by that I mean failing miserably - to figure out the mess that is Revelations. I mean, none of this stuff makes any sense.”

“It’s not meant to,” the angel said simply. “Even the angels only have a slight grasp on what’s to come. God is the only one who truly knows.”

Danielle sighed, tossing her pen on the pile of papers. “Great. And now that I’m not a prophet, we really have no idea what’s coming next.” She snorted, lips pulling into a humorless smirk.

Castiel watched her, confused. After a moment, she shook her head and pulled out the printed pages of Revelation again. “There’s gotta be a way. While you’re here, you can help.”

Before he could, the door opened and Sam and Dean came in. Dean grinned at them. “Well, if it isn’t Bradgelina,” he said, setting the fast food bags on the table.

“You got our message I see,” Sam said.

“It’s lucky you found him,” Castiel replied, rising to his feet.

“So what do we do with him?” Sam asked.

“Kill him.”

The room went dead silent. Everyone stared at the angel, wondering and hoping if maybe he had finally gotten a sense of humor. A strange, twisted one, but one nonetheless. When he didn’t crack a smile, or explain himself, Dean said, “Cas…”

“This child is half demon, half human, and far more powerful than either. Other cultures call this hybrid Cambion or Katako. Yours knows it as the Antichrist.”

“Jessie?” Danielle demanded. “The Antichrist? He’s, like, ten.”

The Antichrist she knew of was supposed to a charismatic and charming individual, beloved by all but manipulative and evil down to their very core. He was Satanic through and through, and would help bring Satan to the height of his power.

“And soon it will grow strong enough to be one of the Devil’s greatest weapons.”

“Well, it Jessie is a demonic Howitzer, what the hell’s he doing in Nebraska?” Dean asked.

“The demons lost it. They can’t find it, but they’re looking.”

“Him,” Danielle corrected, feeling anger stir in her gut. The angel looked to her, surprise shining in his blue eyes, but she remained steadfast. “He’s not an it, he’s a little boy.”

“How did they lose him?” Sam asked.

“The child’s power. It…  _ He _ can hide himself from angels and demons.”

“So he’s got a forcefield around him. Great, problem solved.”

“How is that problem solved?” Danielle asked Dean.

“With Lucifer risen, the child’s power grows immense. Soon he will do more than just make a few toys come to life, something that will draw the demons to him. The demons will find this child. Lucifer will twist this boy to his purpose. And then, with a word, this  _ child _ will destroy the Host of Heaven.”

“Whoa,” Dean said, stopping Castiel. “You’re saying that Jessie’s gonna nuke the angels?”

“We cannot allow that to happen,” Castiel said.

“We’re not killing a kid either,” Danielle stated, and her jaw was clenched with fury.

Castiel turned his stony gaze to her. “A few months ago you would have done anything to stop the apocalypse and save the angels.”

“Because the angels are so worth saving,” Danielle said with a snort. His eyes flashed, and she wondered if she might have gone too far.

“Okay, look, she’s right,” Dean said. “We are not gonna kill him, alright? But we can’t just leave him here.”

“So we take him to Bobby’s,” Sam suggested.

“You’ll kidnap him?” Castiel demanded. “What is going on in this town is what happens when this thing is happy. You cannot imagine what it will do when it’s angry.”

“ _ He _ !” Danielle stood up, the chair scratching on the linoleum. “Listen, I don’t care if that little boy is Satan himself, he is not going to die.”

Her and the angel stared at each other, both furious.

“You have no other option,” Castiel argued. “You will not be able to hold him. With a thought, he could be halfway across the world.”

“So we tell him,” Sam said, intervening between the two before Danielle popped a vein. “You say Jessie’s destined to go dark side, fine. But he hasn’t yet. So if we lay it all out for him - what he is, the apocalypse, everything - he might make the right choice.”

“You didn’t, and I can’t take that chance.” With that, Castiel disappeared.

“We gotta go,” Danielle said, instantly throwing on some shoes. She tossed Sam’s weapon bag to him, and they were out the door and in the car in seconds.

The girl launched herself from the Impala before it had even stopped, sprinting up the driveway and into the house. She chased after the edge of a trench coat disappearing around a corner. Castiel took a threatening step towards the child cowering against the living room wall.

Grabbing the angel would do nothing; he was as sturdy as a rock. So Danielle ran between the two, feeling the knife cut through her jacket sleeve as she grabbed the boy and ran. A hand reached for her back, but she twisted away, knocking a dresser over behind her and not stopping until she was all the way back around to the front door.

“Don’t let him hurt me!” Jessie shrieked as Castiel appeared in the foyer. Dean and Sam burst through the front door, quickly slipping between the angel and ex-prophet.

“Cut it out!” Sam snapped.

Castiel took another step, and Danielle’s arms tightened on the little boy. He buried his face in her neck, tears wetting her skin. “There is no other option!”

Jessie’s hands squeezed her hair. “You can either help or go,” Danielle hissed.

Castiel was torn, but he let the knife fall to his side. Dean jumped forward and took it. Cas met Danielle’s uneasy gaze, and she knew this was only a temporary truce. He would take the chance again if he saw it.

“I don’t want him here,” Jessie said, his voice mumbled.

“He won’t hurt you,” Danielle promised, rubbing his back. There was a rustling, like a paper bag in the wind, and Castiel was gone. They looked at each other; had Jessie really just whisked away an angel?

She set the boy down on the couch, sitting next to him

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“He’s not a friend,” Dean said.

Jessie looked at Danielle. “He’s kind of a friend,” the girl clarified. Lying to him from the get go was no way to get him to trust them. “We’re in a fight right now.”

“Why does he want to kill me?” Jessie asked.

“Because… Because you’re a superhero,” Dean said as he crouched before the boy. “You have super powers. You see, my partners and I work for a secret government agency. Our job is to find kids with special powers. In fact, we’re gonna take you to a secret base in South Dakota where you can train.”

“Like the X-Men?” Jessie actually seemed excited.

“Exactly. The guy we’re taking you to even has a wheelchair. You’ll be a hero, get to save the lives, get the girl. Sounds great, huh?”

Dean went flying. He slammed into the wall, and Sam went next, toppling over the nearest recliner. Danielle tried to grab the boy and run, but his arm slipped from her reach as she flew through the air too. Pain exploded in her back as her impact shuddered the house.

“They’re lying to you.”

The demon possessing Jessie’s mother strolled into the house, easily detaining them all as if they were nothing more than … than humans. She smirked up at Sam. “You stay right there. Can’t hurt you, dreamboat. But you…” She turned to Dean. “Hurting you’s encouraged.” With a flick of her hand, Dean smashed his way around the room, finally slamming to a stop with a quiet groan. His eyelashes fluttered; he was well on his way to unconsciousness.

“And you,” the demon said, turning to Danielle. “Heard you lost your license. Malpractice. Happens to the best of us. It does, however, make you expendable.” Her lips spread into a wicked grin, and Danielle’s head exploded with pain as she pounded onto the floor. Blood welled up in her mouth, lightning flashing in her brain.

“Stop it!” Jessie demanded, but his voice sounded soft and far away. “Who are you?”

“I’m your mother,” the demon answered. “Your real mother. The people who have you now, they’re not your real parents. You always knew that, though. You always knew you were different. They lied to you, just like these three lied to you. They’re not really FBI agents, and you’re not a superhero.”

Danielle tried to get up. Her arms trembled, though, as soon as she put weight on them. Scared she would fall, she gave up, letting the cold from the floor cool her throbbing head.

“What am I?” Jessie asked.

“Powerful. You’re half human, half one of us. You’re stronger than you could ever imagine- you can have whatever you want,  _ do _ whatever you want. And no one can stop you. You can make it so that no one will ever lie to you again. Come with me, and we’ll change the world. We’ll make it better, with no more lying.”

“Jessie,” Danielle panted. “Jessie, listen to me-”

The demon clenched her fist, and Danielle’s innards twisted in hot agony. She pressed a hand on her stomach to keep the organs inside; there was no way this sort of pain could be imagined. She had to be dying, had to be -

“They’re not your family. They only raised you. They don’t love you; how could they leave you alone all day and pretend to care about you?”

“Stop!” Jessie exclaimed. His hands clamped over his ears, shaking his head so hard that his hair flopped around. The house began to tremble as well, dust raining from the ceiling. Danielle dragged herself up, leaning against the wall and panting.

“I’m sorry we lied to you,” Danielle said. “We just wanted to protect you. I’ll tell you everything once we get out of this, I promise.”

“Tell me the truth,” Jessie demanded. “I want to know the truth.”

Danielle told him everything she knew. About him, about the demons and the angels and her and Sam and Dean and Bobby. By the time she was done, Jessie’s grey-green eyes were swimming with tears.

“Stop,” he said, and the demon stiffened. “I don’t want this. I want to be normal!”

“I know,” Sam said, and it was clear the boy was tearing him right down the middle. “But we’re telling you this now so that you can make the right decisions. I need to know that someone can, even if I couldn’t.”

Jessie looked at his mother. “Get out of here,” he said, simply, and the demon’s black spirit shot from its vessel and out into the night. The boys fell from the wall, Dean collapsing onto the floor.

Sam helped Dean onto the couch. He sagged heavily against the seat, head lying back on the pillow as he caught his breath.

“What now?” Jessie asked. His eyes were focused on something far off, clouded and unsteady. He stood slowly. “I can’t stay here, can I?”

“No,” Sam said. “The demons know where you are. You can come with us.”

Jessie paused. “I won’t go without my mom and dad.”

“There’s nothing more important than family. We get that. But know this- it’s gonna be dangerous for them too.”

Jessie looked between the two. “What should I do?”

“It’s your choice. I know it’s not fair.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I wanna say goodbye. To my parents.” As soon as the boy was upstairs, Danielle went to Dean’s side. He had a nasty cut on his head, just above his ear, that would no doubt need stitches. In the meantime, she had him lean his head and pressed his bandana against it to stem the bleeding.

When ten minutes had passed and Jessie was still gone, Dean furrowed his eyebrows. “He’s been gone a while,” he said.

Danielle and Sam exchanged a glance, but before Sam could go upstairs to check on him, Castiel appeared in the room. “He’s gone,” he said, simply. He touched Dean’s brow with two fingers, and Danielle watched as the cut vanished. 

“Where?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know. He’s hidden himself from me.”

“He’s just a little boy,” Danielle said.

Dean met her distraught gaze before turning to the angel. “How do we find him?”

“We can’t. Unless he wants to be found.” Castiel looked down at the body. “What happened?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all! sorry this chapter was a little choppy; i kinda rushed to get this one out. i hope yall are excited because cas and danny stuff is about to start picking up!! thanks so much for all the sweet reviews (-:


	13. twilight zone

_ “the angel said to him, ‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.” - luke 1:19 _

 

“W-What does that mean?”

Though the surgery had been a success and the patient had no reason to worry, he was scared nonetheless. Danielle smiled at him over his clipboard, aware of the surgeon’s eyes on her back. “It just means we wanna make sure everything remains stable and there are no surprises.”

“Are surprises expected?”

“No, but there is a chance. Trust me, though: you’re in good hands. If you have anymore questions, you can press that button for a nurse. For now you need to rest.”

He nodded, sinking back into his pillows, and her and the surgeon stepped out into the hall. She heaved a sigh of relief once the door was shut. “I thought for sure he was about to panic.”

“Oh, he was,” the doctor said. “Next time, try not to make it sound so inevitable for something to go wrong. The last thing we needed was for him to get his heartrate up.”

Danielle’s smile fell at the surgeon’s harsh criticism, and she sagged against the wall as he left. Had she really done that poorly?

“Danielle?”

“Holy sh- Dan!”

Danielle turned, and Sam and Dean were running up the hallway. But that… didn’t make sense. She was an intern, she was at a hospital in North Carolina working for the summer. What were they doing here, and why were they dressed like doctors?

“Y’all can’t be here,” she hissed once they reached her. “You’re not doctors.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Dean mumbled.

“Do you know what’s going on?” Sam asked.

Danielle furrowed her brow. “What? No, what are you talking about?”

“Last thing I know, we were in a hotel in Jackson. Now we’re suddenly in a hospital dressed up as doctors?”

Danielle shuffled her feet. “I’m just an intern,” she mumbled. She tried to remember what had happened the day before, but it was just a blank. She thought she could remember eating at a diner with the boys, but that could have been ages ago. “Are we hunting something?”

“Yeah, the trickster,” Dean said.

That rang a few bells, and as her memory was resurfacing, Dean caught sight of something over her shoulder. His jaw dropped, and he turned his back. “Oh my God. It’s him.”

“Who?” Sam demanded.

“It’s him, it’s Dr. Sexy.”

They turned as a surgeon stepped into their little circle. “Doctor,” he greeted.

“Doctor,” Dean said, nearly beside himself.

“Doctor,” he said to Sam.

Sam faltered, repeating the greeting after a moment. The doctor glanced at Danielle, scowled a little, and looked back at Dean. Sam raised his eyebrow at her, but she only shrugged. She was just an intern. “Do you wanna give me one good reason why you defied my direct order?”

“Just… one?” Dean stammered. His gaze dropped, and suddenly he was shoving Dr. Sexy against the wall. “You’re not Dr. Sexy,” he growled.

“You’re crazy.”

“Oh really? Because part of what makes Dr. Sexy sexy is the fact that he wears cowboy boots. Not tennis shoes.” Dean readjusted his grip on the doctor, who scowled.

Everyone froze. Dr. Sexy’s face shimmered, and suddenly he was holding the Trickster. “You two are getting better,” he said, grinning.

“Get us the hell outta here,” Dean growled.

“Or what?” He effortlessly knocked Dean’s arm away, patting the wincing man on the shoulder. “I don’t see your wooden stakes anywhere.”

“You just couldn’t resist, could you?” Sam asked.

The Trickster shrugged. “Heard you two were in town and thought, what the hell!” He circled around Dean, looking Danielle from head to toe. “Hello sweetheart. What’s a nice girl like you doing with a couple of chumps like these two?”

Danielle crossed her arms over her chest, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

He gasped, snapping his fingers and then pointing. “You’re prophet girl! Or, ex-prophet girl right? Heard about your powers. Shame.”

“We need to talk to you,” Sam said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, I know. You broke the world and now you want my help to fix it? Tell you what: survive the next twenty-four hours, and then we’ll talk.”

“Survive what?” Dean asked.

“The game.”

“What game?”

“You’re in it.”

“What are the rules?”

The Trickster waggled his eyebrows at them before disappearing.

“Doctor.” A man walked out of his room, puffy eyes evident to how he’d been crying. “My wife needs that face implant.”

Dean grimaced. “Look buddy, this isn’t real. You’re not real, your wife’s not real and doesn’t need jack shit.”

They started down the hallway, hopefully to find a way out, when there was a flash and a bang. The patient had pulled out a gun, and blood was seeping into the back of Dean’s coat. Was that fake too?

He fell to a knee. “It’s real,” he panted.

Sam grabbed him. “Help!” he shouted.

Dean was lying facedown in the middle of an operating room. Sam and Danielle were dressed out, the latter standing to the side with the other interns. The nurses and assistants were buzzing around Dean. “BP is 80 over 50 and dropping.”

Sam met Danielle’s eyes, holding a clamp and a wad of gauze. “I don’t know how to use any of this stuff!”

“Improvise!” Dean grunted from the table.

“The clamp,” Danielle said, nodding. The interns hushed her, one even elbowed her, and Sam nervously lowered the instrument. She pantomimed what he was supposed to do, leading him through the surgery from the middle of the huddled group. Sam extracted the bullet and the fragmented pieces, using the needle to stitch up the hole.

She stood in the kitchen of a small apartment, drying the wet dishes A smile rested on her lips, and after a moment it faded when she realized she didn’t know why it was there. Or why she was there. Where was she?

She went into the main room, and there Raphael stood with Castiel in his arms. The plate shattered on the ground. The knife at the angel’s throat pressed tighter, blood running down his neck. “Don’t move,” he said, in that terrible, overwhelming voice of his.

It was raining outside. Lightning flashed across the room, and the lights went out all at once. Her heart raced in time with the rain pounding on the roof. “Let him go.”

Castiel’s eyes were wide, panicked, and he reached his hands up to claw at Raphael’s arms. It did nothing, though. The archangel was infallible.

“This is how it will end,” he said. “This little rebellion never stood a chance. You can’t possibly hope to succeed when even Lucifer has failed. You’re just a child, a girl mistakenly chosen for divine power.”

He can’t take that. She was divine, she was a prophet, she had a power even if it was for just a little while. God chose her, knowing full well what she would do and what she would choose. It was divine. She was divine. But she had to save Castiel. “I know,” she said. “I know, but Sam and Dean won’t give up.”

“That’s why you’ll convince them to give up.”

Like that was possible. She could never; they would never listen to her, she was just a girl-

The blade drew across Castiel’s throat. He let out a horrifying little gurgle, falling to his knees as blood splattered over the room, down his shirt, splashing against her feet. He pitched forward, flat on his face, and Danielle screamed as his blood soaked the carpet.

“This will be your future,” the archangel whispered in her ear. She could barely hear him over her muffled sobs. “You have to save him from this. You must convince them.”

The door opened, and there was Castiel. He looked down at his dead body before meeting Danielle’s gaze. He was horrified, unhinged, and he opened his mouth to speak only to find himself without a voice.

“Are you okay?” Danielle demanded, cringing as she splashed through his blood to reach him. “What’s happening?”

He looked at something over her shoulder, and she whirled around. The Trickster stood with Raphael at his side, smirking. “Hey sweetheart. How’s it going?”

“What is this?” she demanded, and Castiel stepped forward, moving between her and the monster.

He rolled his eyes. “I  _ told you _ : it’s the game! Are you having fun?”

She gaped at him before gesturing wildly at the dead angel on her floor. Which was the real Cas? Was he really dead? Was the man in front of her only a mirage, a vision? “What do you think?”

She blinked, and Cas was next to the Trickster. She blinked again, and the Trickster was next to her, the point of an angel blade nestled in the hollow of her throat. Castiel froze, and Raphael grinned at him. She didn’t know why, but his smile was more unsettling than one of his icy glares. “Ah ah ah, now Castiel. That’s not good behavior. Would hate it if something happened to your girlfriend.” Castiel’s eyebrows furrowed, and she could hear him clarifying the matter. But the knife pressed deeper, and she tried to pull back before it cut the skin. “Wait, is she your girlfriend? Or has it not happened in this universe yet? I get my timetables all mixed up.”

Universe? Yet? 

What she did know was that the Trickster was stronger than Castiel. He was stronger than an angel, a feat that no other monster could boast of. A feat that nothing in all of creation could boast of, except for…

“Which one are you?” she asked, painfully aware of how her throat moved each time she spoke. If she stalled him, if she played along to this ‘game’, maybe she could get away. She just had to figure out the rules. “You’re not Michael or Raphael.”

The Trickster laughed, dropping the knife and circling around back to his original spot. Castiel mirrored him, coming back to Danielle’s side. “See, I knew you were just the girl for the job. Quick as a whip, this one,” he told the other angel, waving the blade in her direction.

“What job?” she asked.

Castiel grabbed her arm, and they burst through a door into an overly colorful motel room. Sam and Dean turned as they entered, and the live studio audience gave a spattered applause. “Hey!” Dean exclaimed. “Are y’all okay?”

“I don’t have much time,” Castiel said.

As soon as the words had left his mouth, he went flying.

“He’s an a-” Danielle started to say, but suddenly she found herself coughing. Something was caught in her throat, choking her, and she buckled. Red in the face, she spat a crumpled book page into her hand. She tried to read the words, but the tears in her eyes blurred everything and the next page was already halfway up her throat.

“Heyo!”

The archangel jumped into the room, a massive grin spread on his face and moving far too freely for an angel. Danielle fell to her knees then, and Dean shouted for him to leave her alone.

“What’s wrong, Danny? Cat got your tongue?”

There was a sharp pain on her tongue and something soft in her mouth, and she gagged as she pried the cat’s claws from her tongue. The audience went wild. The archangel snapped his fingers. 

The woods were dark, and the trees went on as far as she could see. The trunks towered far above her head, each one as grey and dead as the last. In the distance, she could hear something screaming. She shivered.

A body fell from above, cracking on the hard ground. She screamed and as she neared the corpse, she recognized it: the body was her father’s.

Behind her, there was a crash, and she turned to see her sister fall into her arms. Her skin was burned and crumbled to ash as she touched. She watched her sister blow away in the breeze.

Danielle ran then, running through the trees from her past, from the family that she lost for no reason other than her divine powers. They were dead, and for what? Nothing. They died for nothing, and there was no one to blame but bad timing and poor luck and divine intervention.

There was a house, and she burst through the door. Her fingers shook as she locked it. She let out a sigh of relief, turning and taking in the hotel room. Sam and Dean were already in bed.

Was this it? Had he given them up? He must have grown tired of the game and decided to let them go. She smiled seeing that the boys had been so exhausted that they’d fallen asleep with their shoes on.

She went to take off Sam’s, but as she came around the kitchen counter, she finally understood.

The Trickster had killed them. They laid on each bed like it was their coffin, arms crossed over their chests, the sheets soaked in their own blood. Each of them had gaping holes on their necks; Dean’s was still pulsating blood.

She screamed and screamed, whirling around when she heard a noise. And there a woman stood, wearing a leather jacket and with long brown hair that seemed all too familiar. It took Danielle a moment to realize that she was staring at herself, although the blood dripping from her swollen lips made her barely recognizable. 

“No,” Danielle whispered.

“I was hungry,” the version of herself said, and her eyes _ ,  _ oh God her  _ eyes _ . They were dead, detached, cold as ice with no emotion swimming in them. She just killed them, Sam and Dean;  _ she did it. _

_ It’s not real _ , she told herself. Only a trick, they were fighting the Trickster and now he was tricking her with her vampire self that Dean had seen in that whack future. Except… if it was here, and the archangel had seen it too, maybe it was true? Maybe it would actually happen, maybe she actually will kill the boys.

“They’re only humans,” the vampire said, her fangs retracting into her gums. “They have no meaning. They couldn’t save Castiel. They couldn’t save me. What worth do they have?”

Danielle screamed into her palm and gagged as she tasted blood. She pulled her hand away; both hands were covered in it, and so were her jeans, and her shirt, and the black leather jacket. She touched her mouth and there was more blood, dripping from her the teeth aching in her gums. The vampire in front of her was gone; she was the vampire now.

“Do you see?”

The angel stood between Sam and Dean’s bodies. He spread his arms, motioning to the destruction she had caused. “Look at what you’ve done. What you will do. Your family, your powers, Sam, Dean, Cas, yourself… You’ll lose it all.”

“No,” she said, wiping at the blood stuck to her skin.

“Yes. It’s already started happening. And you know it’s true.” He stepped towards her and snapped his fingers. The blood was gone, and she was back in her normal clothes. Her fangs disappeared. “But you can stop it.”

“H-How?”

“Sam and Dean. All you have to do is convince them to say yes.”

Horror stirred in her stomach.  _ Of course  _ this is what he wanted. He was an archangel, he would want the end of the world just as much as all the other monsters up in heaven. She shook her head, stepping back, her foot slipping in all the blood. She had to grab onto the dresser to stay upright.

“It’s the only way. You can’t fight destiny!”

“This isn’t destiny,” she shot back. “This is just chaos that y’all started!”

He furrowed his eyebrows, suddenly angry. “I’m sorry, who popped open Lucifer’s cage? Oh, that’s right: Sam did. Now we’re trying to clean up  _ your  _ mess.”

“We can fix this,” she said. “We don’t have to just give up!”

“It’s not giving up, it’s  _ growing up _ and accepting the responsibility to finish what you started.” He stepped even closer, so that his eyes were inches from Danielle’s and she could smell the chocolate on his breath. “The only way to stop  _ total annihilation  _ is to get those precious boys of yours to step up to the plate. Otherwise,  _ everyone  _ dies, not just some. There is no other ending. You can save the world, kid, and this is how. I don’t know if they’ll ever agree to it on their own, but with your help? You have to guide them to it. And then imagine all the people that will survive because of you.”

If there was no way to stop this madness, if there was no way to kill Lucifer, and the two didn’t agree to be the vessels, the world would be ruined. There would be no paradise, no Heaven, just Hell unleashed everywhere. They’d all be tormented, for  _ eternity.  _ Was it not kinder to sacrifice a few for the sake of humanity? If this didn’t happen now, it would be in a hundred years, a thousand. The apocalypse is going to happen, they all knew that, it’s only been written for thousands of years. 

It was just poor luck and bad timing. And now it was their job, their responsibility, to pick up the pieces left behind. They were helpless against the angels: this proved that. Not even all of them with Castiel could manage to stop one archangel. What did they hope to accomplish against Lucifer, the strongest of them all?

“Atta girl,” the archangel said. He held out a hand. “What do you say we go see those boys of yours?”

She wanted to brush him off, to storm out the door and into the unknown. But she had to play along so that she could reunite with Sam and Dean. So she took his hand, and they stood in a dirt road, surrounded by a cornfield. The Impala sat on the side of the road, Sam and Dean leaning on the hood. At their appearance, they jumped off.

“Dan! You alright?” Dean demanded.

She nodded, circling around to their side.

“So how ‘bout it boys? You ready to bat yet?”

Dean hesitated. “Tell me one thing. Why didn’t the stake kill you?”

The archangel shrugged. “I am the Trickster.”

Danielle shook her head, reaching for Dean’s arm, but he already knew. “Or maybe you’re not,” he said as Sam dropped his lighter. The circle of holy oil went up in flames. “Maybe you’ve always been an angel.”

He snapped his fingers, and they were in an empty factory building. He clapped slowly. “Well played, boys. How’d you figure me out?”

“No one gets the jump on Cas like you did,” Sam said. “Besides, you wouldn’t let Danny talk, which means you were scared of what she’d say.”

He smirked, his hazel eyes finding hers. “She did figure me out pretty fast. Faster than you two douche-nozzels, anyway.”

“So which one are you? Grumpy, Sneezy, or Douchey?”

The archangel looked at Sam, and he finally resembled one of his own kind. His face was stony, expression unreadable and eyes hard. “Gabriel, okay? They call me Gabriel.”

“ _ The _ Gabriel?” Sam answered.

“You told Mary about Jesus,” Danielle whispered. She’d smarted off to the angel that announced the coming of the savior of mankind.

“My shining moment,” he said and rolled his eyes. “Everyone else got to do all these cool things, and all I did was tell a woman she was pregnant.”

“With  _ Jesus _ .”

Gabriel shrugged. “Just another guy.”

Such blatant blasphemy from an archangel, no less, made her nauseous. “Where’s Cas?”

He grinned and shook his head. “Should have known you’d be the first to ask about him.” Danielle narrowed her eyes, unsure of what he meant, but he snapped his fingers and the angel appeared beside her.

“Are you okay?” she asked as he swayed on his feet.

His nose was split open, and a dark bruise colored beneath his eyes. “I’m fine. Hello Gabriel.”

“Hey bro. How’s the search for Daddy going?”

Castiel straightened his shoulders and his nostrils flared.

Dean changed the subject back to Gabriel, and the brothers drilled him with question after question. When the archangel revealed that it was destiny that the boys were chosen, that the angels had always known since the beginning of time that it would end with him, Danielle had to turn away.

Gabriel had been right, then. There was no stopping this. They never had a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so for those of you who don't know, i wrote up to like chapter 80something of this story on fanfiction.net but i decided to go back and rewrite it all (since i started writing this story four years ago yikesTM) and move over here. and update: my new year's resolution (made a few weeks late (classic)) is to finish rewriting this story and to catch up to where i left off!!! yay!! so expect more frequent updates and by the end of this year (fingers crossed) we'll be at new stuff! thanks for reading and leave comments!!


	14. last night on earth

_"in fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted..." - 2 Timothy 3:12_

 

The drive home was a long one. Dean had pulled over about half an hour ago, reluctantly letting Danielle take the wheel for the last couple hours. The boys had long since passed out in the backseat, leaving her alone with AC/DC’s greatest hits on replay. After about the fifth time of hearing Thunderstruck, she turned the radio off and drove in silence.

“Gabriel is gone.”

Her mind was racing too fast to be scared as Castiel appeared in the passenger seat. “You went back,” she said.

“Yes. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t following us.” Danielle glanced at him. “He’s not.”

“Great,” she mumbled, drumming her fingers on the wheel.

“You’re not tired?” Castiel asked.

Danielle shook her head, twining one hand into her messy hair. How could she be tired with so many thoughts shooting through her mind? If how tonight was going was any indicator, she’d never sleep again. “What did Gabriel do to you?”

“He’s always had a strange sense of humor. You were there.”

“Me?”

The angel narrowed his eyes as he stared at the road. “You kept… dying. I tried to stop it, but there was nothing I could do.”

Danielle didn’t know how that made her feel. Her stomach twisted. “I saw the same thing,” she admitted, and she felt his gaze on her. “I mean, you saw it. He made Raphael kill you because of me.” Because she couldn’t convince the boys to give up. She glanced in the rearview mirror; Dean’s quiet snores filled the backseat, Sam’s face smashed up against his brother’s shoulder.

She loved them like they were her own family. How could she possibly be the one to convince them to kill each other?

“I wonder what it means,” Castiel muttered.

Gabriel had played that card before. He made Sam relive his brother dying a thousand times over in an attempt to show that Dean was his weakness and vice versa. Did that mean she was Castiel’s weakness? Somehow she wasn’t convinced.

“Where did Gabriel take you after we saw Sam and Dean? I couldn’t find you.”

She swallowed the disgust that rose in the back of her throat, hating the way she could still taste the blood. She wiped the back of her hand across her chin and checked just to make sure it really was gone.

She wanted to tell him, to confess to the monster she would eventually become, but she couldn’t find the words. The shame hid them. She didn’t want him to know, didn’t want anyone to know. Two angels now had seen her become a vampire if they don’t stop the apocalypse, and she didn’t like what that meant. When it became apparent that there wasn’t going to be an answer, Castiel turned to the road again.

“Can you…” Danielle started, her voice quiet and tremulous. “Can you tell if someone’s a monster?”

He kept his face impassive. “That depends. What kind of monster?”

“A vampire,” she whispered.

She felt his eyes trying to read her expression, but she just clenched her jaw and tightened her grip on the wheel. She would not give anything away, but she had to check. She had to be sure, there had been so much blood and who really knows the full extent of what Gabriel did to her?

“You’re still human,” he answered. There was question in his voice, but she only sighed in relief. After a moment of silence, he said, “I should go.”

“Or you could stay,” she said with a small, nervous smile. She could feel those dark thoughts pulling at her again, and she wanted to distract herself. She needed someone to keep it all at bay, keep her mind occupied. He furrowed his brow, confused by her offer. “You know, talk and keep me awake. It would be kinda bad if I got the last hope for all of creation killed prematurely.”

His lips flickered up at the corners. “That would be very bad,” he agreed. He left all the same.

Sam and Dean managed to sleep for just a few hours more before Castiel called them with Crowley’s location. They swung by a no-name town in Nebraska to pick up the Colt and Ellen and Jo before returning to Bobby’s.

Danielle sat in the kitchen, watching Ellen and Jo convince Cas to down a line of shots. Danielle denied Jo as she handed a glass to her. “I don’t drink.”

“You on the cleanse?” Ellen asked, taking the drink from Jo and throwing it back.

“No, I just don’t really want to,” Danielle said.

“She doesn’t consume for religious reasons,” Castiel said.

“I was raised Baptist, and Baptists don’t think drinking is right.”

Jo let out a snort of disbelief. “You believe in all that?”

“Yes?” Danielle answered, raising her eyebrows.

“How can you be a hunter and believe in _God_?” Jo asked.

Danielle laughed at that. “I am definitely not a hunter. I’m just a hunter-in-training, but mostly I feel like I’m a Bobby-in-training. I do a lot of research, mostly.”

“I heard you used to be a prophet,” Ellen said, leaning back in her seat. “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Danielle shared a glance with Castiel, grimacing. “I decided I didn’t want the world to end.” She let out a small, sardonic laugh, picking at a nail. “They didn’t like that I didn’t agree with them.”

“Well,” Jo said after a moment of awkward silence. “Fuck ‘em.”

“Joanna Beth!” Ellen snapped, but Jo was laughing. Danielle liked the hunters; it was nice to be around girls again, after living with boys for so long.

They stayed up late that night, sitting around the living room, talking and joking. The day after tomorrow would be their last day before heading to Missouri to hunt the devil. Danielle tried not to think much about it; every time she even thought about it a little, her heart would start pounding and her head get dizzy.

Danielle had offered the attic bed to Ellen and Jo, but Ellen protested, claiming ‘the city girl’ should have the bed. So she settled down on a dusty mattress on the other side of the room, leaving the bed to Danielle and Jo.

“So,” Jo started, after her mother had finally drifted off. “How’d you get sucked in? I mean, I know you were a prophet, but when your powers stopped why didn’t you just go home?”

Danielle swallowed the bile in the back of her throat. “Demons killed my family. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Pause. “I lost my dad a while ago. A hunt gone wrong.”

“I’m sorry. It seems like everyone’s lost something.”

“Well how else would hunters get into it?” When Danielle cast Jo a confused look, she explained, “Me and my mom used to own a bar for hunters.”

“No, I remember. From my dreams. I just don’t understand what you mean.”

“I used to talk to the hunters a lot - well, they would talk to me - and everyone loses someone to a demon or a ‘shifter and then, in revenge, decides to join the fight. That’s how everyone gets sucked in.”

“I guess you’re right,” Danielle whispered. She thought of all the hunters she knew: John, Sam, Dean, Bobby, Ellen and Jo. Even her. There was a pattern.

After a while, Jo’s lips twisted up into a smirk. “So, what’s up with you and Dean?”

Danielle covered her mouth with a hand to keep from laughing. “Absolutely nothing. It’s not like that.”

Jo raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

“Yeah. He’s basically my brother.”

“Sam? I can understand; that sweet side of his is killer.”

“No way. He is also basically my brother.”

Jo propped herself up on an elbow, her smirk turning evil. “Castiel, then?”

“He’s an angel,” Danielle shot back, as if that were the only sort of answer needed. Which, if she only knew what angels were really like, she would understand. Angels struggled to feel any sort of anything, let alone love or desire for companionship. Although Castiel was definitely more liberal with his emotions than his brothers and sisters.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Those _eyes_. He’s got a stare straight out of a romance novel.”

“You noticed that too?”

The girls quietly laughed before finally their conversation ebbed. It wasn’t long before Jo’s breathing slowed, leaving Danielle as the only one awake. She stared at the ceiling, pushing out all thoughts of the devil. She clung to any thought that wasn’t about Lucifer, the first thing to mind being Castiel’s romance novel stare.

And eventually Danielle fell asleep, dreaming of her vampire self and beautiful blue eyes.

The dip in the mattress as Jo rolled out of bed was what woke Danielle up. She kept her eyes closed, groggily listening as Jo and Ellen got ready for the day and tiptoed down the stairs in an attempt, she was sure, to not wake her.

Danielle laid there, creeping towards consciousness. She clung to sleep, remembering that today might be their last day alive. Her heart gave a sporadic kick in her chest, and she shoved the thought out of her mind. She would _not_ think about that. Not now, not yet.

She only got up when the smell of food drifted up the stairs. Dean passed her as she shuffled into the room, balancing two plates full of food and a biscuit in his mouth. “Rise and shine princess,” he mumbled.

Danielle went into the kitchen, got her plate from Bobby, and sat leaning her back against the couch. For a while, it was quiet as everyone focused on eating instead of the elephant in the room. Everyone was thinking it though: today was their last day. Tomorrow, they faced off with the devil. Tomorrow, they would die.

“So,” Dean said, once the crushing weight of their silence had become almost too much to bear. “Our last day. What are our plans?”

“Eat,” Danielle suggested with a shrug.

“Sleep,” Jo added.

“I was gonna finish watching that show,” Sam said.

Dean was horrified. “Terrible. All of you.”

“Actually,” Danielle said, standing. “I wanna do some more target stuff.”

“I’ll help you,” Dean offered. “Jo, you in?”

Danielle ran up the stairs to change, and when she came down she found that Cas had joined their little entourage. When she glanced at Dean, he offered her a simple: “He wanted to come too.” She didn’t question it, and they walked out to the back of the junkyard where Bobby had set up a makeshift shooting range.

Dean handed Danielle a gun, and she closed one eye and pulled the trigger. Her bullet caught the edge of the sandbag, ripping a line in the burlap. She practiced with the gun for a while, but eventually she switched back to her crossbow. Jo was surprised at the weapon choice, though everyone else had gotten used to it. Danielle loved the bow.

It didn’t take long before Dean was too busy flirting with Jo to supervise, leaving Danielle to train on her own with Castiel watching. Danielle didn’t stop until her arms were aching with exertion.

Castiel stepped up to her side, eyeing the couple. “They’re making me uncomfortable.”

“I think it’s kind of cute. I’m pretty sure she likes him.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t tell Dean.”

“I won’t,” Castiel answered, though he was squinting his eyes at the two like he didn’t understand. “How can you tell?”

“Well, she’s smiling. A lot. And she’s blushing. And look how close they’re standing. You don’t stand that close to someone unless you like them,” she said, noticing how Castiel’s arm brushed against her shoulder as she turned.

“So do you … ‘like’ Dean?” he asked.

“What? No.”

“You do the same thing with Dean. And Sam. And me,” he added with a frown.

Danielle let out a small laugh. “That’s just how I am.” She shook her head at his befuddled expression, patting his arm. “Trust me, I’ve been human all my life and even I still have problems figuring out when people are flirting with me.”

 _Real smooth._ She blamed Jo for putting even the thought of liking Castiel in her head; now she felt like she was constantly flirting, even though she was just talking to him. She was over thinking everything already.

“So, why don’t we just kill Lucier with the angel blade?” Danielle asked.

“I honestly don’t know if it would work. One most certainly would not be able to get close enough to find out. Lucifer is more powerful than your wildest dreams.”

Danielle had a dream about Cas last night, though she couldn’t remember what happened. All she could remember were his eyes. She never really noticed just how handsome the angel was, with his strong jaw and shadow of a beard.

Castiel caught her staring, and she quickly looked away. She could feel his eyes on her reddening face. Her blush didn’t even start to go away until he finally looked back at Dean and Jo.

“We won’t die tomorrow,” Danielle said, quietly. Her dark eyes found Cas’s. “We won’t.”

He didn’t answer. She knew it was because he didn’t agree, but she appreciated him for not saying anything. Just thinking about losing them was a little too much for the girl; they were all she had left. She watched as a huge grin spread across Dean’s face, and her heart panged. She blinked away the tears that rose in her eyes. They were going to be alright. They wouldn’t die.

Danielle glanced up at the angel, remembering how things used to be. For the longest time, she’d been so confused about him. She’d wanted so badly to trust him, but with Dean warning her not to get attached, she was constantly overwhelmed with guilt by betraying one side or the other. And here they finally were: together, on humanity’s side. Dean had tried to convince her that the angel was bad, but he’d given up heaven, everything he ever knew, for them and for the rest of humanity. As awful as the angels were, at least Danielle knew that there was one with a heart as big as theirs.

Castiel caught her staring again, and this time she didn’t look away.

“I don’t know if any of us have said this but… thank you. For falling. You’re actually not that bad for an angel.” She gave him a little smile.

“Mickey and Minnie, you ready?” Dean called, waving a hand to beckon them back towards the house.

“Mickey and Minnie?” Danielle heard Jo question. Dean leaned close to her as they walked, and Danielle knew she would get an earful later that night for not having told Jo sooner about Zachariah’s future. If they only knew what Gabriel had said, about them not being together ‘yet’. Danielle still wasn’t sure what it meant, wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

As they neared the house, Danielle asked Dean to wait outside for a moment. Jo and Cas went inside, and Dean turned to her. “Yeah, what’s up?”

She thought she was going be able to do it. But as he faced her, as soon as she tried to speak, the words were gone. Tears already burned the corners of her eyes, and she cleared her throat to try and get rid of the lump. She squinted, the setting sun shining over Dean’s shoulder and right into her eyes.

“Dan? What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, I’m just scared,” she whispered. She wiped at her cheeks with her jacket sleeve, bouncing her leg and biting her lip. “I know you hate this mushy-gushy stuff, but if we’re gonna die tomorrow-”

Dean held up a hand. “Stop.”

“Dean-”

“I mean it.” His eyes were hard, but she could tell it was hurting him. He was scared too. “You’re not gonna say goodbye. Not a chance.”

She shook her head, and he clenched his jaw as she continued regardless. “Thank you,” she said. _For trying to save my family. For saving me. For letting me stay. For making me laugh, for watching out for me, for teaching me._ “For everything. And you better not die tomorrow.” She smiled, letting out a breathless laugh that was half sob.

“I don’t plan on it.” For a moment, he lingered there, like he was about to say something too. But then he just pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her back. He kissed her head before she pulled away.

She punched his shoulder, trying to return to some semblance of normal. He shoved her head down, putting her in a chokehold, but she managed to duck away and run back inside.

“Everybody, get in here!” Bobby called from the living room. “Time for the lineup; usual suspects in the corner.”

They trickled into the living room as Bobby fidgeted with the camera, setting it so it would be just right.

“Oh, come on Bobby, nobody wants their picture taken,” Ellen protested.

“Hear, hear,” Dean mumbled.

“I think it’s a sweet idea,” Danielle stated, smiling at Sam’s grimace.

“Call me sweet again, an’ you’ll be the one in the wheelchair,” Bobby warned. “I’m gonna need somethin’ to remember your sorry asses by.”

“Always good to have an optimist around,” Ellen joked.

“Bobby’s right,” came Castiel’s grim voice as Danielle shot the camera her trademark grin. “Tomorrow we hunt the devil. This is our last night on earth.”

Somehow, it just seemed _so much worse_ coming from Castiel. He was their angel, invincible and strong, and even he knew they wouldn’t make it out alive.

Their faces fell, and Danielle’s smile drooped a little at the corners, but the flash still went off, and the picture was still saved.

Nobody had enough appetite for dinner, so they all settled down in their respective spots in an attempt to get some sleep. Danielle didn’t even try; she just went straight outside. She walked through the junkyard, unnerved by the darkness. It was a full moon, at least, so paired with the lights from the house, she could see a little.

She found a dilapidated truck near the house and laid down in the bed. She folded her arms under her head and just stared up at the stars. The cool night air had a nip to it, occasionally stirring her dark hair around.

“What you said earlier-”

Danielle inhaled, snapping her head up and spotting Castiel standing at the end of the truck bed. She sighed, rubbing a hand over her face and propping herself up against the back of the car.

“You were saying goodbye.”

Danielle nodded. “Yeah. Might as well get those out of the way while I still can.”

Castiel bobbed his head, looking down for a second before meeting her eyes with his piercing gaze. “Is it customary to tell one what you think of them before they die?”

Danielle let a faint smile flit across her lips, and she shrugged. “You can if you want. Some people like it, others don’t.”

Castiel nodded. “You are a coward.”

Danielle snorted. “Geez, Cas, you’re s’posed to say good things.”

He gave her a pointed look, as if to say she interrupted him as he plowed on: “But I believe that sometimes … you can be brave, like with that child.”

She had saved that little boy. Not fully, of course, Jessie had saved himself from the demon. But she had saved him from Cas, and she liked to think that she saved him from himself. She shrugged. “He was a kid. It’s human nature to protect kids.”

“You stayed. You could have left.”

“What, like run away? Where would I run to? All of this will catch up to me eventually. Might as well try to do something about it.” After a while, she asked, “How does one look for God?”

“With difficulty,” Castiel said. Danielle moved to the end of the bed, letting her feet swing off the edge. She patted the spot next to her, and the angel awkwardly clambered up and mimicked her posture. “I only have rumors and legends to follow, some dating back millenia.”

“So, you’re saying you’re thousands of years behind?” she asked, staring at the fringe of silver moonlight haloing his tousled hair.

“Yes.” He sighed and looked at the hands resting in his lap. “It’s all very tiring.”

Was he… opening up to her? “I would imagine. I mean, wouldn’t God know you were looking for him? And if He wanted to be found, He’d make himself known.”

“I can’t believe that. Maybe He wants me to prove that I’m worthy by finding him.”

 _Or maybe He just wants it to be over. Maybe he wants some peace too._ She pushed the thought away. “Maybe,” she mumbled.

“Why do you think Gabriel showed us each other dying?” Castiel asked.

 _Because you’re my weakness._ Her stomach twisted. She didn’t know that, that was only a hypothesis. She hadn’t fully invested in that theory, and she certainly wasn’t about to tell _him_ that. “Because we’re friends, probably. And he’s a sick guy.”

Castiel looked at her. “We’re friends.”

Danielle smiled, her teeth shining bright in the dark, and elbowed his side. “Yeah.” After a moment, she laid back on the bed, staring up at the stars. “Our last night on earth,” she whispered. Her breath pooled into the air as a ghostly fog.

“Our last night on earth,” the angel solemnly agreed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's weeks like these past two that remind me of why i rarely update. im drowning in work but i hope y'alls semesters/years are going well so far and are not as hectic as mine!!! enjoy (-:


	15. what's up, doc?

_ "and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." – Ecclesiastes 12:7 _

 

They pulled their car up to the curb, Danielle sliding out of the back. The Missouri town was abandoned, cars left in the middle of the road with their doors open and newspapers drifting across sidewalks. As if the sight wasn’t eerie enough, it was drizzling, washing everything in a creepy gray color. It wasn’t very encouraging, all in all. 

Jo rapped her knuckles on the backseat window. “Ever hear of a door handle?”

“Of course I have,” the angel answered from right behind her.

Jo jumped a little, and Danielle smirked, glad that for once it wasn’t her who was surprised. She flipped her long braid behind her back, all too aware of the gun tucked in her waistband. The weight offered little comfort. 

“Reapers,” Castiel announced.

“Reapers?” Ellen clarified. “As in, more than one?”

“The death things, right? The ones that come get you before you die?” Danielle asked.

“They only gather like this in times of major catastrophe: Chicago fire, San Francisco earthquake…” 

“The apocalypse,” Jo mumbled under her breath. They all took in the empty street uneasily, however. Danielle wondered if it was possible for any of this to get any creepier.

“Excuse me. I have to find out why they’re here.”

He began to cross the street, and Danielle chased after him. “Wait, Cas!” she called. He stopped. “We shouldn’t split up.”

The angel paused, his brow furrowing as he looked down at her. “I’ll be fine. Stay with Ellen and Jo.”

Danielle chewed on her lip. “You sure?”

He only nodded, turning and continuing away.

“Be careful,” she called, jogging back to the women.

“As should you,” came the solemn response before something caught his eye and he disappeared.

“Worried?” Jo teased.

Danielle rolled her eyes. They hadn’t had time to explore much before Sam and Dean finally pulled up in the Impala after searching the other side of town, reporting that they had had similar results. 

Dean clambered out of the car, cocking his shotgun. He spotted Danielle’s scowl. “What, the rain messing up your hair, princess?”

Danielle frowned and shook her head. “This isn’t what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting? Hellfire and demons?” Sam asked with a snort.

“Something like that. So, where do we look now?”

“Well, if you were the devil, where would you be?” Dean teased.

Danielle rolled her eyes. They were all in particularly chipper moods despite the belief that they would all die today. Of course, she knew that it had to be an act. It was Hunters 101: don’t let anyone see you’re scared. Bring up the team by hiding your weaknesses. 

They continued down the main road, and the pit in Danielle’s stomach only grew worse. Doors softly hit against their hinges in the wind, rain dripped from awnings into puddles. Each sound was near deafening, and they jumped more than once at sounds that turned out to be harmless. 

It didn’t make sense. If the Devil was here, that would explain the Reapers - in part. They were ready to collect the souls of his victims. Though why so many were needed was still a question, unless Satan had something big planned coming up soon. But why just them? From what she knew of the monsters, they went by a strict code: everyone has their time. They can’t be forced to take a soul, so they were pretty useless in the means of protection. There should be demons, hellhounds, all sorts of precautions set in place. He was being hunted, after all, and if they could find him - with the help of a simple crossroads demon - the archangels couldn’t be far behind.

“I think this is a trap,” Danielle said. “If the devil really is here, wouldn’t he have demons to protect him?”

“He’s the devil, Danny,” Sam returned. “I doubt he needs protection.”

They continued, though everyone felt a little more uneasy.

“Where’s Cas?” Dean asked as he finally noticed the missing angel.

“He took off, said he saw some reapers,” Ellen answered.

“Where?” he questioned.

“Well, kind of… everywhere,” Jo said. 

“Well this is just great,” Dean growled. “We’ve been in town twenty minutes, and we already lost the angel up our sleeve.”

“You think… Lucifer got him?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know what else to think.”

“Idiot should’ve let me come with him,” Danielle muttered, kicking a missing flyer that had floated down in front of her foot. Her stomach felt empty, gnawing on itself in her fear and now guilt. She shouldn’t have let him go off alone.

“And if the devil showed up? Dan, you’d die of fear,” Dean pointed out.

“Like a rabbit,” Jo added. “You know, when they get so scared they just sorta fall over.”

“Just call me Bugs.”

“Well, there you are!”

The sleazy voice made all of them jerk to a stop. In front of them, where a second ago had been an empty road, now stood a girl. Danielle pulled her gun from her waistband, clicking off the safety as she recognized her as the demon from the other night.

“Meg,” Sam barked.

“Shouldn’t have come here, boys,” Meg said, a grin spreading across her face. The last time Danielle had seen her, she’d fled when faced with both Winchesters. Now she was openly facing them, with two more hunters to boot. Danielle started to glance around the empty buildings, trying to see the demons that were undoubtedly hiding. 

“I could say the same thing,” Dean stated as he stalked forward, pistol aimed between her eyes. 

“Did you think I came here alone, Dean-O?” she asked.

Something dripped in the puddle next to her, and the air was suddenly full of menacing growls and snarls. Dean stiffened, the barrel of his gun dipping down. “Hellhounds.”

“Yeah. Your  _ favorite, _ ” she added with a smile.

Danielle was all too aware of Dean’s proximity to the nearest hound; if that thing were to pounce, he wouldn’t have time to get away. Danielle looked around desperately, trying to find a way out. 

“My father wants to see you. Now, you can make this easy, or you can make it really, really hard.”

A low growl rippled through the air nearby, and her heart stopped beating. She looked to her left, watching a trash can slide aside as a hound slip past. The water in the puddle spread, as if the beast had stepped in it. It stayed put, muscles tensed, ready to leap. It wasn’t but fifteen, twenty feet away.

“When have we ever been known to make anything easy?” Dean demanded.

Danielle was now frantic as she tried to find a way out. They would never outrun the dogs, and they couldn’t fight them. That left hiding, or sneaking away. Her gaze landed on a little convenience store right across the street, the door left slightly ajar.

Sam met her eyes, the same panic in his gaze. She inclined her head towards the store, and he nodded. He tapped Ellen, who tapped Jo, and the four of them started inching away. 

There was a loud gunshot as the air next to Meg suddenly let out a gush of blood. Danielle faltered, the shot distracting her for half a second while everyone else took in a mad rush for the store. Of course, that was plenty long enough. 

A bark was all Danielle had as warning. She whirled around before feeling something slam straight into her. Instinctively, she threw up an arm as she was slammed into the pavement. She was more aware of the cold water of the puddle she’d fallen into seeping through her shirt than she was the holes ripping apart her skin. 

The chest of the hound pressed against the barrel as she tried to shove her gun up. She slammed her knee into the dog’s rib cage, and it yelped, readjusting its hold on her arm. Its putrid breath pooled into her face, and she squeezed the trigger. Warm blood spattered across her face. She squeezed again, the loud sound accompanied by a whine as the hound fell away.

Someone helped her up to her feet. She shot again, and as the hound fell, it knocked into a car and slid the vehicle aside, as if it weighed like nothing. “C’mon!” Sam shouted, grabbing her above the elbow and sprinting into the store. He slammed the door shut, and she helped him chain it.

As she turned away, she lost her balance, slipping on some form of liquid and nearly knocking over a stand of rotting fruits. The blood all over the ground made her heart stop- at first, she thought it was hers. However, she followed the trail, her eyes landing on Jo. Dean set her on the ground, and she quickly clamped her hands over her bloody side.

Dean helped his brother fortify the building with salt lines and more chains, leaving Danielle to run around the store collecting as many medical supplies as she could find. Her hands shook so badly she could hardly get a grip on anything, and she kept knocking things off the shelves. Her heart raced, and she avoided looking at her arm, only noticing the blood that was welling up in the holes the beast’s teeth had left behind.

She slid to her knees next to Jo, letting the items clatter to the ground. “Uh, her- here’s gauze, a-and some duck tape, and Ace b-bandages.” She explained each one as she pushed the objects over to Ellen. “I also got some p-peroxide, and Advil and whiskey t-to ease the pain.”

“Thank you.” The woman immediately set to work. Her face was pale.

“Uh, here’s a blanket. For the s-shock.”

“I- I think you need it m- more than me,” Jo mumbled, a small smile flickering across her face. She let out a breathy laugh before falling into a coughing fit. Blood dribbled down the side of her mouth, and Danielle reached up and wiped it away. She caught sight of the gaping hole in Jo’s side, her face draining of color as she saw the girl’s intestines.

A quick glance at Ellen confirmed what she had feared; the woman thought there was still a chance. She didn’t realize that Jo was already gone.

“Pretty nasty, huh?”

“Now, you shut up Joanna Beth,” Ellen ordered. She turned to look at Danielle. “Why don’t you get your arm patched up?”

Danielle just numbly nodded, rising to her feet and joining Sam and Dean where they were huddled around a radio. They looked up when they saw her, eyes snapping to her arm. 

“Shit,” Dean whispered.

“Will you help?” she asked, her fingers tightly clenching a wad of gauze. Sam stepped up to her and held out his hand. Danielle tried to let go, but her fingers were locked in place.  _ Stupid, stupid hand.  _ She tried as hard as she could, but nothing moved. It brought tears to her eyes. How was she supposed to fight the devil if she couldn’t even spread out her hand? “I- I can’t,” she stammered.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Sam said, alarmed that she had so suddenly started crying. He pried her fingers apart.

“I think I’m going into shock.”

Sam took her arm and started to quickly wrap it. Despite everything, his hands were steady. She wished she had steady hands. She wished she could be as strong and brave as he was.

“How’s Jo looking?” Dean asked.

Danielle swallowed the lump in her throat. She shook her head. 

“Dammit,” Dean whispered. 

“W- What do we do now?” Danielle looked up at Dean. The Hellhounds were still there, growling and barking as they slammed themselves against the walls. The chains rattled with every thump.

“We…” Dean trailed off. His voice was hoarse, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Uh, we fix this radio. And w- we call Bobby. Maybe he has some news for us.”

Danielle nodded, hissing as Sam tightened the bandage. “Sorry,” he apologized. He shook his head as blood already began to soak through the gauze. “This isn’t gonna hold for long. You’re gonna need stitches.”

“Dan, see if you can find something to carry Jo out of here on,” Dean ordered.

The girl, eyes slightly glazed, gave a simple nod before she trudged away. She pulled out the bottom of a dog cage, accidentally letting it slip through her fingers and clatter to the ground. She sagged, leaning her body against the aisle. The metal shelf was cold against her forehead.

Cas was gone. Jo would be in a few minutes, give or take. They were dropping like flies, and they hadn’t even made it to Lucifer yet. 

“Can we be realistic for a second here, guys?” came Jo’s trembling voice. “I’m not going anywhere. My guts are being held in by an Ace bandage. We’ve got everything we need: propane, iron nails, salt.”

Danielle came around the aisle, dragging the bottom of the dog cage with her foot.

“For what?” Dean asked.

“A bomb,” Jo answered. “We’ll build a bomb, let them in, and I’ll blast those sons of bitches right back to hell.”

“Joanna Beth-” Ellen began.

“This is  _ literally _ your last chance to treat me like an adult. You might wanna take it.”

They’d warned Danielle. Hunting wasn’t a walk in the park; it was bloody, from start to finish, and yet she was only just now witnessing it. It made her feel empty inside. 

“No,” Ellen pleaded.

“Yes, mom.”

“No, Jo.” Dean’s tone left no room for argument. Of course, she argued anyways.

“Do you have another idea? Do you have any other plan? We can kill them, or at least I give you guys a head start.”

“I- I’m making a stretcher,” Danielle stated, holding out the leashes she had planned to tie to the bottom of the cage. “We can sneak out the back.”

“They have our scents,” Jo replied, sounding so very tired. She looked it too, her face gray and ashen as she struggled to hold herself upright. If she hadn’t been leaning against the counter, she wouldn’t be able to sit up. “Those sons of bitches will  _ never _ stop.”

“You heard her,” Ellen said after a moment. “Get to work, boys.”

Danielle sat at Jo’s side while the boys put together the bombs. She held Jo’s hand limply.

“If you … don’t get with the angel … I’ll be pissed,” the girl said.

Danielle snorted. “Don’t delude yourself, Jo.”

“Look at you. You even … talk like him.” Her and Jo laughed together, though her laugh quickly morphed into a sob. “One day… You might just actually make a decent hunter.”

Danielle shook her head. “I’m too scared.”

“Look at us,” Ellen said. “We’re all scared to death. You just gotta focus on something stronger than the fear.”

“You think… you could bitch slap the devil for me?” Jo’s eyelids were starting to droop. They didn’t have long.

“I’ll try,” Danielle said as Dean headed back towards them. He helped her stand, and she hobbled over to Sam. The pain in her arm had morphed from a mild stinging to a dull ache, and now it was a throbbing, violent pain. She sagged against Sam, trying to make it like she was hugging him. He held her up.

Dean kissed Jo’s forehead, and then on the mouth, his lips trembling as he pulled away. The empty feeling in her gut only got worse; she wasn’t going to be the only one devastated by Jo’s death.

“You guys better get going,” Ellen said as she sat next to her daughter and took her hand.

The realization of what she was saying hit them all at the same time, and Danielle felt like she was drowning. “Ellen-”

“Mom, no,” Jo protested.

“No,” Ellen said. “Someone has to open the door and let them in. And, like you said, you aren’t moving.”

Danielle sobbed into Sam’s shirt. His fingers dug tightly into her shoulder, and his chest shook with his rattling breaths.

“Go,” Ellen demanded, waving her hands. They hesitated. “Go!”

Dean was the first to move, and Sam pushed Danielle after him. They managed to jog up the stairs and out onto the roof. She had to use both hands to climb down the ladder, and every movement shot pain throughout her whole body.

They made it almost around the corner before the deafening noise ripped through the air. Danielle was battered by a rush of heat, debris flying all around them. They watched as the building went up in flames.

Dean pulled her as they took off again. Numbly, she started to run, focusing on moving one foot and then the other. She poured all her attention into that, ignoring the bile churning in her stomach and the way her whole body felt like it too hot and too cold and itchy and  _ wrong.  _

And least the rain had stopped.

As they were passing a farm, Danielle’s feet got caught up beneath her. She stumbled, and the ground rose up, and her knees lit up with pain as she scraped against the pavement. Her tears splashed in the puddle beneath her, and she struggled to stand up again.

Sam tried to help her, but the world was spinning. She stumbled, and then fell, but he held her up. “Dean, she’s done,” he said. There was pain in his voice.

Dean shook his head, green eyes wide with panic and agony as he took in their surroundings. “We aren’t gonna get this close again. We gotta get him, Sammy.”

“I know,” he said. “But she can’t make it.”

“Then carry her!” Dean shouted, desperate.

Sam furrowed his eyebrows. “You know I can’t carry her that long. You’re gonna need me.”

Dean looked around. “We can… We can put her down. And come back for her.” He nodded his head to the barn just off the road. “There.”

As they were setting her down, Dean froze. “Do you hear that?”

Sam paused. Distantly, he heard chanting. Him and Dean shared a look.

Danielle reached up and grabbed Sam’s hand. The Devil was out there, that she knew, and he had already killed two of her friends. Was she next? Either way, she didn’t want to be alone. “Don’t,” she said.

“We’ll be right back,” Sam promised.

“We gotta do this,” Dean added as he poured salt all around her and around the edges of the barn.

They were going to die, both of them, and she was going to be left all alone again. She lost one family and found another only to lose them too. She cried as she squeezed Sam’s hand tighter. “Don’t leave.”

Sam pushed something cold into her hand. She felt something warm against her forehead, and it wasn’t until she was alone that she realized that he had kissed her. Her fingers rubbed against the thing in her hand- it was a cell phone. His phone, from the feel of it. For the GPS, no doubt, so in case they don’t come back, Bobby might be able to find her. If the Devil didn’t find her first. 

Could she go back to med school? She might have to be re accepted, to go through the long process of interviews and going over MCAT scores and going back for secondaries and follow ups. It would be hard to explain the sudden year and a half absence, but she could blame it on needing time after her family had died. That was a reasonable excuse for most people.

There were demons and hellhounds running around. Danielle looked at her arm; the bandages were completely soaked. Sam had said it would need stitches. Could demons smell blood? If they didn’t get her first, she would bleed to death. How funny, to face hellhounds and demons and the devil himself and die because the body can’t function without keeping most of its blood. She was in hypovolemic shock. She needed a doctor. Or an angel.

She was a prophet, she was divine, chosen by God to foresee His will on earth, and she was going to bleed to death in a muddy barn that reeked of pigs and dung.

When she saw Castiel, she laughed. The demons were going to have to try harder than that. He knelt in the hay in front of her. They got the eyebrow furrow down, at least. It wasn’t that hard though. She tried to do it as well, but it turned out to be too taxing.

His gaze fell on her arm. He picked it up, gently, but she hissed as it burned. He apologized, absurdly, as if the demon had any need to apologize. The hand not holding hers unwrapped the bandages.

They knew how funny it was, how ironic it was, for her to bleed to death. They wanted to hurry up the process. “No,” she told them, trying to pull her arm away.

“Be still,” he told her. He was right. There was no fighting him. Besides, she was exhausted by even that small movement. He cupped her arm, the blood welling up across his palms, and she felt the warmth as the holes closed right before her eyes. The skin knitted back together, leaving her arm totally intact.

Two fingers pressed to her forehead, and she was home.


	16. princess peach

_"then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth - to every nation, tribe, and people." - revelations 14:6_

 

It had been a quiet week. Dean had kept to himself, mostly staying out in the junkyard or taking the Impala and disappearing for stretches at a time. Sam managed to stay at home mostly, though he rarely spoke. Bobby was silent altogether, sitting in his wheelchair and staring at the fire. Occasionally, he would snap out of it and study the bible some more, but he would always fall back to sitting and staring. Silent.

It wasn’t as if Danielle wanted to speak much either. It wasn’t fair that she had gotten so close to Jo only to lose her. The house felt empty with just the three of them in it. She wanted to say something to the boys too, but what was there to say?

Now she sat in the living room, plucking at a stray thread in a the ratty blue blanket she had draped across her lap. Sam and Dean had left for their first hunt since, leaving Danielle behind to rest. Castiel sat in the armchair across from her, as he had for the past half hour.

“What happened after you went after the reapers?” she asked, quietly.

“It was a trap. Lucifer caught me.”

“So you did get caught,” she mumbled. “What happened? I mean, what’d he say?”

“He tried to convince me to side with him.”

“Did it work? I mean-” She broke off as she realized what she had said. She flushed. “I didn’t mean that. I know you never would, I just… was it convincing? Did he trick you?”

“Yes. He was very good at spinning intricate fabrications.”

_Lying_ , Danielle wanted to say. She might have said if her heart didn’t feel like it was tied to a weight. Instead, she kept silent, watching as the angel’s face fell as he thought of something. “What is it?”

“I should have asked him… if he was the one who raised me from death.”

“What? No, Cas.”

“It makes sense.” He stared at his hands in his lap. “He-”

“What are you kids gossiping about?” Bobby grunted, rolling into the room. Danielle just shook her head, and Bobby looked at the angel. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“No.”

The confusion was clear on Bobby’s face. Usually, Castiel only came when he needed something. Danielle was a little confused as well at first, but she figured he needed someone to talk to. It wasn’t like he had anyone else. Clearly, the same realization hadn’t come to Bobby.

“Seriously. Coffee? A weapon? Anything?”

“No.”

“Any word from Sam and Dean?” Danielle asked before he could prod the angel any further.

“Oh yeah. They’re hunting a wraith.”

Danielle cocked her head to the side, eyes narrowed in confusion. “I might’ve heard of those.”

“Yeah. They suck your brain dry and then kill ya,” Bobby retorted, wheeling over to the desk and flipping open a book. Clearly, it didn’t have what he was looking for. He threw it over his shoulder in agitation, looking around the room.

Danielle blinked. “Must have been thinking of a different monster. So are they coming home now?”

“No, there’s another case in Massachusetts. They’re going straight there.”

Danielle knew what book he was looking for- his copy of the Dummy’s Guide to Revelations. It was on the nightstand beside her. She picked it up and tossed it at him, frowning down at the ache in her arm.

“Does it feel any better?” Castiel asked, reaching forward and gently holding her wrist and elbow.

“Well, I’m not bleeding out anymore, so that’s a win.” She shrugged, nonchalant, trying to hide the blush as Castiel scrutinized the closed wound with his romance-novel stare.

Bobby raised the book in farewell, wheeling out of the room and back to … well, wherever he was before.

As if reading her thoughts, Castiel said, “I’m sorry I can’t heal it completely.” He ran his thumb over the bumpy skin, and Danielle felt a chill down her spine. Ridiculous. She pulled her arm back into her lap.

“How much mojo do you have left?” Danielle asked, eyes flickering up to his brow. She hadn’t missed how, even after a few days, his bruise hadn’t gone away.

“Not much,” he admitted, peeking at her through dark lashes before looking away.

“You still have enough to zap around everywhere, right?” she asked with as much of a smile as she could muster. “Because that comes in pretty handy.”

He didn’t smile. Instead, he stared down at his hands. “The more I use it, the faster it goes. It won’t be long before it’s all gone.”

Stupid, to try and make a joke of this. “What happens then?” she whispered. It didn’t seem right to speak any louder, especially considering the seriousness of their conversation. It weighed in the room, on their shoulders and on their hearts, carving into the quiet of Bobby’s house. It was as if they were talking about something that was just a possibility and speaking too loudly would bring it into reality.

“I become fully human,” he said.

That night, she dreamt of Castiel. He took her arm again, running his fingers over the nasty scar. The corners of his lips dipped down, and his eyes bored into hers. “I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice was gruff.

Her heart was pounding hard in her chest, almost as hard as it had while in Missouri. Which was ridiculous. He was just an angel, just her friend, and he shouldn’t make her this nervous. Words couldn’t come to her, and her mouth went dry. He slowly leaned down towards her arm, as if he meant to kiss the scarred skin.

Danielle froze. He melted away, the air shimmering in his absence. Hot breath panted against her arm, and she smelled… something putrid. Like blood. Like the hellhound’s breath. She tried to yank her arm away, but it wouldn’t move. Fangs sank into the ruined flesh, blood welling up once again.

There was a loud snap, and the shimmering dog disappeared with a whine. Glancing down at her arm, she was surprised to see that it was completely healed. There wasn’t even so much as the scar.

Anna stood in the doorway to Bobby’s living room. She wore an amused smirk. “You dream about Cas?”

Danielle flushed scarlet. “I can’t help it,” she snapped, embarrassed to be caught. The last time she had seen Anna was after they lost Jimmy Novak. The time before she’d given her over to Uriel and Castiel. It seemed like ages ago, thinking back on it. Back when angels were good and her family was still alive.

“I suppose. It’s nice to see you again.”

She doubted it. “I guess you got away.”

“The first time I did. But not the time after.”

“You got caught? And you’re still alive?”

“Hardly,” she said with a snort. “I managed to barely escape, but I can’t find you.”

“Cas did this Enochian thing to hide us-” Danielle broke off. What did Anna want to find her for? And why _her_? If anything, the angel should have a personal vendetta against her. “What are you doing here, Anna?”

“I need your help,” she said earnestly, taking a step forward.

Danielle stood. “With what?”

“Danielle, I’m not going to hurt you. I have good intentions.”

Unlikely. Unfortunately, her dream hadn’t encapsulated Bobby’s house fully. The edges were fuzzy, and some of the vital pieces were missing. I.e., the gun he kept on top of his desk and the knife he kept tucked into her bookshelf. “Then tell me what you want.”

Her lips curled up. “I see you’re done letting people boss you around. That’s good. I need a book, and Bobby has it.”

“What book?”

“A journal. It dates back to the twelfth century. Do you think you could help me find it?”

Danielle hesitated. Anna didn’t seem to mean her any harm. Besides, what good would come from it? She wasn’t a prophet anymore. She was useless to the angels. And it wasn’t as if Anna was on their side. And if she wanted to kill Danielle, she could have done it forever ago. She relented and woke up seconds after telling her Bobby’s address.

Danielle rolled off the couch and got tangled in the blanket, having to wrestle with it to get free. She sighed at the familiar sight of Bobby slumped over in his wheelchair, drooling over his notes on Revelations.

She scratched at her arm as she headed down the basement stairs. She turned on the single light bulb that hung from the ceiling, though it was barely any help. It was dim at best and flickered every few seconds. She shuffled over to one of Bobby’s many bookshelves, sliding out a huge box of books.

“What are these?”

Danielle jumped, just barely managing to steady the shelf she’d kicked before it fell over. “These are the oldest books Bobby has,” she answered, affectionately patting the box. She’d paged through a lot of them, reading over all the ancient journals. “If Bobby has the book you’re looking for, it’ll be here.”

Anna ran her gaze over the dusty spines. In the flickering light, her skin seemed paler than before, her lips drawn tight. She looked far more dangerous. Danielle’s heart squeezed with fear; what had the angels done to her?

“That would be great, but I’m not looking for a book.”

Danielle furrowed her brow. “I thought… You said you needed a journal?”

“I lied.”

There was no way to get out of this one. There was nowhere to go, except the panic room. But she would never make it, not faced with a teleporting angel. “What do you want?”

“I’m sorry.”

Danielle whirled around to at least try, but the angel appeared right in front of her. Anna reached out, and Danielle jerked backwards. She managed to knock over the shelf before the tips of Anna’s cool fingers brushed against her temple.

She staggered as her surroundings abruptly changed. She would never get used to that; it was like having the rug yanked out from under her feet. Bobby’s basement was gone, and instead she was in some sort of barn. The room was vast, with no floor and a leaky ceiling. The walls consisted of moist, decaying wood and the whole building smelled like rust and worms.

Danielle pulled the collar of her shirt over her mouth and nose, trying not to gag. She avoided puddles of water as she passed support beams that might once have held up a hay loft. There were all sorts of objects scattered around: lockers, construction equipment, beer cans, food wrappers, etc.

She knew she didn’t have long. She’d been kidnapped by Anna instead of killing instantly, so that was a good sign. If revenge was the issue, she would have died a while ago. Unless Anna planned on torturing her. Maybe this was not a good sign after all.

The better scenario: she was a bargaining chip. For an angel, a demon, whoever. Anna could have been brainwashed by the archangels and was using her to get the boys. Or she would just be given to the highest bidder. That thought was hardly comforting.

Maybe Lucifer himself planned to use her against Sam. Anna was a rebel angel, it would make sense. Maybe she was one of the angels he was using to sway Castiel to the dark side.

Danielle didn’t really care. No, scratch that, she did care. Just not at that moment. She needed to get out, then she could think about it. A few minutes had already passed, and Anna was still AWOL. Did she not care if Danielle escaped? Or she thought Danielle wouldn’t be able to.

Either way, she avoided the patches of gravel. Though her bare feet didn’t make much noise, she still flinched at every time her toes squelched in the mud. It was freezing, too, and she regretted sleeping in anything less than a parka. Instead, she crossed her bare arms in front of her chest, caving in on herself for warmth.

At the end of the barn there were double doors. But something was wrong. Anna wouldn’t just let her walk away. There had to be a trick, or they had to be locked. Maybe it was all an illusion. Maybe she wasn’t in a barn at all.

As she moved down the barn and no one popped out from behind anything, she grew braver. She could see now that a chain was indeed wrapped around the handles, all dressed up with a massive padlock. Nearby, however, there was a screwdriver and a hammer.

Quickly, quickly, she pushed the head of the driver into the lock and slammed the hammer on the end of it. One hit, two hits, and the metal clattered as it fell on the gravel. She tensed up, listening, waiting for Anna to appear. Nothing.

It took all of her strength to shove the heavy wooden doors open. Of course, as soon as she had enough time to see the dark field in front of her, the doors slammed shut. Lightning flashed in her head as she was smacked back into the barn.

For a moment, she didn’t register what happened. She was stunned, staring at the blurry ceiling. Once she came back to her sense and the ringing in her eyes had faded, she pushed herself up. A hand to her hot and swollen mouth and nose came away bloody.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t leave.”

Danielle grunted as she stood. Everything was tilted to the side, but in the grand scheme of things, that really wasn’t that bad. She was doing pretty well.

“I’m impressed. Not long ago a blow like that would’ve knocked you down for at least an hour.”

“I’ve b- been training,” she blubbered. Already, her bottom lip was swollen almost twice its size. Blood filled her mouth, and she had to spit.

“Clearly.”

Anna started approaching. Danielle took a step back, feigning fear. Behind her back, she adjusted her sweaty grip on the screwdriver that she’d managed to hold onto. Anna kept coming, only stopping a few feet away. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said in earnest.

Danielle, with all her might, drove the screwdriver right into Anna’s heart.

It was harder and easier than she expected in so many ways. The muscle was much tougher to pierce than she’d thought, but, once she got past it, the tool went straight through. It had cut through the tissue like it was butter, piercing the heart. Blood splattered across her face, and for a moment she was petrified, waiting for the angel to fall over.

Anna’s white shirt was soon drenched in blood, and she froze. A thin line trickled from the corner of her mouth, and she wiped it away with a knuckle. But she didn’t drop.

Danielle knew that only an angel blade could kill her, but she was hoping for at least a minute or two of unconsciousness. Enough for her to run. She wasn’t expecting Anna to stare her straight in the eye as she pulled the screwdriver from her chest.

For a terrifying moment, Danielle thought the angel would stab her. She looked as if she wanted to. She looked like every other angel, like a marble statue; cold, without empathy, and utterly remorseless. Except this piece of rock took orders only from her confused self, which made her all the more dangerous.

She dropped it. “I can’t let you leave.”

She snapped her fingers, and Danielle was in a chair in the middle of the room. She wasn’t bound by anything visible, but she couldn’t move her arms or legs away from the chair. When she looked up to beg Anna to release her, the angel was gone.

Struggling was useless. There was no getting away from restraints that didn’t exist. As the adrenaline faded, the pain took its place. Her face felt like it was on fire, throbbing with every beat of her heart, and her elbows and back ached from where she’d scraped them up falling.

Blood kept dripping from her face and into her mouth, down her chin, all over her shirt and sweats. And now that she wasn’t moving or panicking, the cold was starting to get to her. The ceiling above her was one of the rotten parts, and she could see the stars past what was left of the wood planks. Her whole body was shivering, and she gnashed her teeth together to keep them from chattering.

She didn’t know how much time had passed when Anna finally showed up again; enough time for Danielle to drift in and out of sleep. “What do you want?” Danielle asked. Her voice was hoarse.

Anna stiffened. “Hello?” she called, timidly.

A few leaves on the floor drifted by as a breeze blew through the building. Danielle shuddered. The lights hanging from the ceiling popped, showering sparks down onto the ground. Danielle flinched as sparks rained down next to her.

“Hello, Anna.”

The gravelly voice made Danielle jolt awake, sighing in relief at the sight of Castiel. It didn’t matter that he was half-starved for angel power, or that, right now, Anna was stronger than him. If he was here, that meant he was going to get her out. Knowing him, he probably already had a plan.

“Castiel,” Anna said. Was it just Danielle dreaming or did the angel sound scared? She couldn’t blame her; she would be scared if she had to face Castiel too. “The Winchesters were supposed to come.”

“But here I am. How unfortunate for you.”

Danielle smiled, ignoring the pain in her cracked lips, leaning her head on the back of the chair. She’d be home soon.

“Do the Winchesters not trust me?”

“No. Not anymore. Neither do I. If you’re back, then it’s because they _let_ you out.”

“I escaped,” Anna protested. They began to circle each other, like in one of those old Westerns Dean loved. But Anna was nervous, that much was obvious.

“No one escapes,” came his stony response, and his blue eyes, almost black in the darkness, flickered over the angel’s shoulder to her. “Are you alright?” he called.

A smirk flickered across her lips. “Hanging in there,” she wheezed.

“What did you do to her?” Castiel demanded.

“She tried to escape.”

“Because you trapped her like an animal,” Castiel snapped. “How did you do it? You must have deceived her to find her. Does it give you joy to trick someone so naive, and then to lock them away?” Danielle’s brow furrowed. That was a little rude, but she supposed he wasn’t too far off. She _was_ pretty naive. Castiel continued, “Have you even fed her? Humans need food and water. It’s been almost two days, Anna.”

That explained why she felt so dizzy even while sitting. Anna looked away in shame. “I wasn’t going to kill her.”

“Then what are you doing with that knife?”

“What? I’m not allowed to defend myself?”

“Against whom?” came Castiel’s sharp retort. “That knife doesn’t kill angels. Not like this one.”

Danielle hadn’t seen him draw the blade. One minute, his hands were free, the next, the moonlight was glinting off the edge of his knife. Her heart soared. She was safe.

Anna knew she was caught. She looked back and forth between the blade and Castiel, knowing that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. Not now, not with Danielle’s safety on the line. “It’s not for her,” she quickly explained. “It’s for Sam Winchester.”

That was odd. Castiel met Danielle’s gaze, every bit as confused as she was.

“Sam Winchester has to die. I’m sorry, but we both know it. He’s Lucifer’s vessel.”

“But not the only one,” Castiel argued.

“What, that guy Nick? He’s burning away as we speak. Sam is the only one that matters. We kill him, and Lucifer’s whole plan falls to shreds.”

“He won’t say yes,” Danielle said, swallowing to try and ease the fire in her throat. It felt like sandpaper.

Anna ignored her, unsurprisingly. “No apocalypse, no Croatoan virus. Danielle doesn’t die.” Castiel sent her a sharp glance; she hadn’t told him that she would die in the future. Of course, she hadn’t told him very much at all about the future. She only shrugged. “The horsemen go back to their day jobs.

It was unnerving, because Anna wasn’t wrong. Without Sam, the Devil wouldn’t have his proper vessel, and he wouldn’t be able to carry through with his plan. If she wasn’t friends with him, she might want to do the same thing. What was one man for the good of the whole universe?

Castiel, as shaken as she was, shook his head and stepped back. “Even if you did, Satan would just bring him back.”

“Not if I scatter his cells across the universe.”

“There has to be another way.”

Anna gave a humorless snort. “How’s the Colt working out for you? The search for God? Nothing’s _working_.”

Then, the earth-shattering truth hit Danielle, knocking the breath out of her. They weren’t going to kill the devil. No one was. He was going to bring about the apocalypse, with or without Sam. He already was, judging by the hurricanes buffeting every coastal town and earthquakes ripping the fault lines apart. He’d bounce from vessel to vessel, until he wore Sam down or tricked him.

They couldn’t fight him forever. And between Michael and Lucifer, they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. They would just keep existing, until eventually someone caved.

“Danielle?”

Danielle looked up, realizing that Castiel was standing in front of her. Anna was gone, and she could move again.

“Are you alright?”

She nodded and then groaned as her head ached with pain. Slowly, she stood. Her knees gave out from having been sitting in the same position, and Cas just managed to steady her. She held onto him as she stretched out each of her frozen legs.

“We’re gonna lose,” she whispered. “Michael and Lucifer will never stop. Not until they get what they want.”

“We can’t just give up,” Castiel protested.

Danielle let out a humorless laugh, which turned into a racking cough. “Look- Look around you! Castiel…” She couldn’t find the words to describe the chaos inside. How foolish they had all been, to think that they ever had a chance. They were doomed from the start. “We’re done.”

“I won’t give up,” Castiel promised. “Neither will Sam or Dean or Bobby. We’ll finish what we started. They’re waiting. We need to go.”

She nodded, holding out a hand. Castiel took it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends so remember that time i said i would update more frequently?? haha ..... well better late than never amirite??


	17. Chapter 17

_ "for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways" - psalm 91:11 _

 

They sat in the motel room, Dean tending to Danielle’s wounds, Castiel searching for Anna, and Sam’s gaze going back and forth between them all.

“Sam, hand me that bottle of whiskey,” Dean ordered, pushing Danielle down on the bed.

Instantly, she started to get away. “You can’t just pour whiskey on my face! You need hydrogen peroxide!”

Dean snorted. “Peroxide’s for sissies. Just close your eyes, you big baby.”

Danielle squeezed her eyes shut, and Dean cupped a hand around her eyebrows as he poured the whiskey on her forehead, and then on her nose and chin. Danielle hissed as the cuts burned. She sat up as soon as he was done, but her head started to spin.

“You good?” Dean asked as she swayed.

“Yeah, I-”

“Jesus, Dan, you’re freezing,” Dean said, interrupting her as he pressed his palm against her forehead. Across the room, Castiel looked up from his summoning spell.

“She probably caught a cold,” Sam said as he pulled the quilt off the other bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. “From sitting out in that wet barn.”

“You can’t get sick from the weather,” Danielle said. She meant to shake her head, but her head was pounding.

“Yeah, well tell that to the hundreds of people who died from pneumonia back in the olden days.” Dean stood, wiping his hands on his jeans and heading over to Cas. “What do you say?”

“She’s right. It’s a common myth.”

Dean shared an exasperated glance with his brother. “I meant with Anna, Dr. Oz.”

“I’m almost done here.”

“Won’t she just hide herself?” Sam asked.

“I know her. She’ll have rushed and undoubtedly made a mistake. Besides, the real problem resides in me. I don’t have much… mojo left to find her.”

“Well, chop chop. Clock’s ticking,” Dean said.

“So, why are we summoning Anna?” Danielle asked. “Isn’t she stronger than all of us?”

“Maybe,” said Castiel. “But she won’t stop until she gets what she wants. Or until she’s dead.”

“Great.” Dean clapped his hands together. “And how many angel blades do you have?”

“Two.” Castiel began to speak then, in Enochian, his deep voice reverberating around the room. He rolled his ‘r’s, and she looked away to hide the blush creeping up her throat.

Castiel suddenly broke off and swayed. He stumbled, grabbing onto the back of the chair to hold himself up. Instantly, Danielle was on her feet and at his side, ignoring the way pain stabbed in her head with every movement. “Are you okay?”

He didn’t answer, his eyes clenched shut. His knuckles were white from his tight grip on the chair. 

“Where is she?” Dean demanded after Cas took a deep breath.

“Not where. When. 1978.”

Dean and Sam shared a stupefied glance. “Why? I wasn’t even born yet.”

Danielle’s eyes went wide as she and Cas realized at the same time, “You won’t be.”

“She’s going to kill your parents,” Castiel added. He straightened up, releasing the chair but leaving distinct finger indents in the metal.

“Well then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

Castiel shook his head. “Time travel was difficult with the powers of Heaven at my disposal. Taking the trip, with passengers nonetheless… will weaken me.”

“They’re our parents,” Dean responded firmly. “We’re going.”

“Danielle can stay behind,” Sam offered.

She might have protested, but she was far too worried about Castiel to pressure him into letting her go too. “Are you sure you can do this?” she asked the angel.

Castiel glanced at the ground for a second before meeting her gaze. “I will try.”

“You have enough juice to go and come back, right?” she asked. The last thing they needed was for them to get stuck in 1978.

Castiel looked grim, but he nodded anyways. Danielle helped him pack a duffel bag with a few vases of the holy oil and his two angel blades. As the boys packed their own bags, Danielle pulled him aside in the kitchen. She kept her voice low enough so that they wouldn’t hear her. “You  _ can _ do this, right?”

“Yes,” he muttered back, though avoiding her gaze.

“Castiel,” she whispered, catching his guilty gaze.

He stared at her for a second, and Danielle was suddenly acutely aware of how close they were standing together. “I’m afraid this trip might deplete the rest of my powers.”

Danielle frowned. “Is that it?”

Castiel scowled, stuffing a blade into the bag. “There is a possibility it could kill me.”

“Castiel!” she hissed, reaching forward and grabbing his coat arm, just above the elbow. Cas glanced down at her hand in surprise, but she didn’t let go. “You can’t do this.”

“I have to,” came the just as intense response. He leaned even closer. “I have to keep all of you safe. No matter the cost.”

The sudden sentiment threw her off. Her grip slackened, but she kept hold. He was so earnest that it made her heart swell.

“Uh… you two having a moment?”

Danielle flushed as Dean and Sam were staring at them, both looking more than a little freaked. She let go of his jacket and stepped away, fiddling with her sleeves before crossing her arms awkwardly. She almost told them, but Castiel shot her a look.

“We were only conversing,” he said. 

“Uh, yeah,” she agreed, hesitantly. “We were just talking. About… a plan.” She nodded and gave the boys a thin-lipped smile. He had better not die. 

“Are you two ready?” Castiel asked, handing Sam the duffel bag full of angel-killing equipment.

“How long do you think this’ll take?” Danielle asked. “I mean, how long before I need to start worrying?”

“Everything goes well, we’ll be back by dinnertime. Have a steak waiting for us.” Dean winked at her and looked at Cas. “Let’s go.”

Castiel reached out and took their shoulders before leaving Danielle alone.

She spent the next day and the half alone, barely sleeping for fear they would appear while she was asleep. They didn’t have much food at the room, but she ate whatever she could find: a few protein bars, some gas station-bought chips, and water from the sink since the boys only had beer to drink. 

They showed up again around lunchtime of the second day. She was staring at herself in the mirror in slight horror; her lips were busted, her forehead and chin scraped, and not one but  _ two _ black eyes. 

There was a loud noise, and she heard someone gasping. She jumped back and saw a frantic Sam in the middle of the room. “Are you okay?” she demanded as he started clutching at his side as if he was wounded. “Where’s Dean and Cas?”

His eyes were huge. “I dunno!” He clawed away his shirt to stare at his stomach. 

“Sam, what’s happening?”

“I- I died!” he said, pointing at his unwounded side. “Uriel stabbed me!”

“ _ What _ ? Sam, Uriel’s dead!”

Dean suddenly appeared then, stumbling into his brother. They grabbed onto each other to steady themselves. “Are you okay?” he demanded.

“Yeah, yeah. You?”

Dean only nodded before pulling his brother into a huge hug.

Danielle, bewildered and frustrated, clapped her hands to get the boys’ attention. “Guys!” she croaked. “What  _ happened _ ? Where’s Cas?”

The boys separated, sharing a pained look. “Michael zapped us back,” Dean said.

“What, like M- Michael, Michael? The  _ archangel _ Michael who wants to make you his vessel?”

“You want me to explain or not?” Dean asked, and Danielle fell silent. She listened as Dean told how they found their parents only to find Anna as well, and then they were quickly joined by Uriel and Michael, who surprisingly let them go. 

“So what about Cas? Is he stuck there now? How are we gonna get him out?” she demanded, running her hands through her hair before coughing. It was a dry, raspy cough, and it burned her throat. 

“He’ll show up eventually,” Dean said, eyes narrowing. “Why do you care so much anyways?”

“What do you mean? Because he’s my  _ friend _ ,” she snapped.

“Danny, is that … steak?” Sam asked, pointing at the food covered on the table.

Dean’s eyes lit up. “No way, you actually got us steak?”

Danielle couldn’t resist a small smile at how excited both of them looked. “Yeah. I thought y’all would be hungry, and I figured if there ever was a time to blow fifty dollars on food…”

“You’re awesome,” Sam said, quickly grabbing a couple beers and taking a seat at the table. Dean and Danielle joined him.

“Did you already eat?” Dean asked around a mouthful of half-chewed sirloin.

Danielle shook her head, her stomach tight with worry. Castiel would come back soon, she was sure of it. He was just a little bit behind. He needed to juice back up. “I haven’t been very hungry.”

“Here, eat my mashed potatoes,” Sam offered, turning his plate so she could reach them better.

“I’m really not hungry.” She started to chew on her lip before remembering that it was split.

Dean sighed. “Dan, he’ll be fine. He always is.”

“You don’t know that,” she said. “He told me … that he didn’t know if he was even going to make it. The more magic he uses, the more it drains him.”

“Danny think of all the times we thought Cas was as good as dead, or hell, all the times he  _ was _ dead. He somehow always comes back.”

“Yeah, but what if he doesn’t?”

“We’ll wait until morning and, if he hasn’t shown up by then, we’ll figure something out. Don’t worry Lois, we’ll get Superman back.” Danielle smiled a little. Dean stood, and ruffled her hair. “You’re the best.”

“I know,” she said quietly.

He rubbed his palms together, heading to the far bed. “Seriously, Danny, don’t get worked up. That little sucker’s impossible to kill.” He fell face-first on the blankets, not even bothering to change out of his jeans.

“So Anna’s dead, huh?” Sam nodded. “And Michael didn’t try to threaten Dean or anything? He just … talked to him?”

Sam shrugged and nodded. “More or less. Dean was a little skimpy with the details.”

“So, the usual.”

Sam lowered his voice. “I think he really got to him.”

Danielle frowned. A part of her wanted to voice her concerns, to get it off her chest to someone else. But she didn’t want them to know she had given up on all this. Instead, she stood, tossing Dean’s plate.

As she passed the refrigerator, she caught sight of a beige figure standing behind her. She gasped, whirling around just in time to catch Castiel as he crumpled. He was too heavy for her, and she ended up clumsily falling to a knee, clutching at his limp body. “Cas? Cas!”

Sam stood so fast he knocked his chair over. “You made it!” he said.

Cas’s eyes had difficulty focusing; he stared up at Danielle with an ever-shifting gaze. “I suppose I did. I’m… very surprised.”

His eyes suddenly rolled back, and Danielle barely managed to keep him up. Sam helped him up, and the two struggled to lay him down until Dean came over and helped. Together, the boys dropped an unconscious Cas on the empty bed. 

Danielle started immediately to make the angel more comfortable. She pulled off his shoes and socks, stacking pillows beneath his feet so that they were elevated.

“Well, this is it.”

Danielle frowned at him before loosening Castiel’s tie. 

“This is what?” Sam asked.

Should she leave the trench coat? She decided it would be too weird to take it off him, sort of like undressing him even though he wore about eight layers.

“Team Free Will. One ex-blood junkie, a dropout with six bucks to his name, Princess Peach, and Mr. Comatose over here.”

“That’s not funny,” Sam said, and Danielle, for once, agreed. As if she needed another reminder of how ridiculously outmatched they were. She ran a dish towel under the faucet. 

“Never said it was. Everyone thinks we’re going to say yes.”

Danielle carefully kept her gaze on the angel, refusing to look at the boys. She gently rubbed away the dried blood on his chin.

“Well, what if they’re right?”

“They’re not.”

“Well, why would we, either of us? But… I’ve been weak before,” Sam mumbled.

“It’s not gonna happen,” Dean said, ending the conversation before Sam was finished.

He went over to the sink, and Danielle risked a glance up at Sam. His brow furrowed at the guilty expression she didn’t realize she was wearing. “Danielle…?”

Dean paused and narrowed his eyes. “What, do you think we’re gonna say yes?”

Danielle exhaled slowly, shutting her eyes. She felt so, so overwhelmed. “They’ll never stop,” she whispered hollowly. “They’ll never stop coming after you two. They’re invincible, and right now we’re just riding it out. You can’t say no forever.”

She shouldn’t have said anything. Sam looked devastated, and Dean wouldn’t even look at her. “I’m not giving up,” she promised.

“Well that’s sure a hell of alot what it sounds like,” Dean said. Danielle couldn’t bear to hold his gaze. He was just as upset as Sam was. “We are only ‘riding this out’ until we can find a way to kill one or both of them.”

“They can’t be killed.”

“Everything can be killed!” he snapped. “Dan, you can’t give up on us. Not you. We’ve bent over backwards to do  _ everything _ for you. The least you can do for us is not give up.”

She nodded, barely holding back the tears. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“Damn straight,” he muttered, stalking past her and furiously flopping down on the bed with his back to them.

She looked at Sam, but he avoided her gaze. He reclined in the armchair with a pillow, his arms crossed in front of his chest. 

She should have known better. The whole world thought they were going to say yes, that they were going to give in. It was the least she could do to believe in them, and she couldn’t even do that. They needed her now, her and Bobby, while the whole world was at their throats. They were the only ones in their corner. She couldn’t imagine what it would do to them if Bobby had said that.

Danielle wiped Cas’s face, hoping he would wake up. His pulse was still there, steady but faint. And that scared her. The angel, the strongest of them all, was lying unconscious on the bed. They were all defeated, all exhausted, and they weren’t even halfway done. Tempers were flaring and powers fading, and they hadn’t even hit rock bottom yet. 

Danielle shut her eyes, praying to her silent God, pleading with Him to reveal Himself. They  _ needed _ Him. Now more than ever. Where had He been? Where had He been in Missouri, when two good people had died for them?

And, for the first time in years, Danielle felt her faith wavering. She opened her eyes and stared at the dark room, hands trembling. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "what do you say" "she's right, it's a common myth" goodbye 
> 
> felt bad about not updating for so long so here's a double whammy!!


	18. or not

_ chapter eighteen: or not _

_ “‘never will i leave you, never will i forsake you’”  _ —  _ hebrews 13:5 _

 

When Castiel woke in the night, he felt something lying across his stomach. The blood rushing in his ears was accompanied by the sounds of someone’s raspy breaths. He picked up his head, vision swimming as he stared at Danielle, who was sitting in a chair at his side. Her head, however, was resting on his stomach, her hair spread across the blankets.

She wheezed with every breath. Small beads of sweat clung to her hairline, and she looked pained. No doubt she had gotten a mild case of hypothermia from sitting out in the cold and rain for so long, and now she was still suffering. Perhaps the thick curtain of hair was making her too hot now and her body couldn’t keep up with the fluctuating conditions.

He reached forward and brushed her temple with the tip of his fingers. He pushed her hair back, trying not to wake her.

Still, she stirred, her eyes fluttering open. She looked at the angel for a long moment, her eyes foggy with sleep. For a long time she watched him, and he waited, tense, for her to say something. Eventually, she whispered, “Scoot over,” and stood.

He did as he was told, and she pulled the covers up. It was hard to slip beneath them with him lying on top, but she still managed. She settled on the pillow so that she was facing him, and Castiel felt that this was not something that was normal. He had never seen her sleep with Sam or Dean like this.

After a moment of watching her, she reopened her dark eyes. “What?”

Danielle Samson did not stare, unless she thought she could get away with it unnoticed. She looked at people with glances, always looking away after a few moments. But, here she was, staring unabashedly right at him. “You’re staring at me,” he pointed out.

“You’re staring at me,” she said back.

“You look ill.”

“I feel it, too.” She shut her eyes again, her lips dipping into a deep frown. She turned onto her stomach, hiding her face in the pillow.

“What is it?” he asked.

“My face hurts.” 

Her voice was muffled by the pillow, but he could still tell that something wasn’t right.  “You’re lying,” he said.

She peeked up, not fully turning back onto her side. She looked so small and sad. “Your eyes are pretty.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“You almost didn’t make it,” she whispered, Castiel was once again stunned. “Cas you can’t die. You  _ can’t. _ ”

“I’ll try not to,” came his confused answer.

“Promise me.” Castiel hesitated; he couldn’t promise that. He knew one of these days he would undoubtedly die, probably in some quiet sacrifice for her or the Winchesters, as he had before. Danielle reached out and fisted her hand in his sleeve. “ _ Promise _ .”

“I… promise,” he eventually muttered, avoiding her gaze. He didn’t like making empty oaths, but he supposed if it made her feel better it wouldn’t be that terrible. Besides, there was no telling how much of this she would remember later. 

Thinking of dying reminded him of what Anna had said in the barn, about her death. He knew Dean had gone to the future, Danielle had told him a little bit about it, but she hadn’t told him that she died. 

“Do you die in the future?”

“Yeah. I get eaten.”

Castiel scowled. She’d painted a very faint picture of her future self, though he knew it was because she didn’t want to talk about it much. It bothered her, that much he knew for certain. But, at least right now, she wasn’t thinking much about it. Even as they spoke, she was falling back to sleep. “See you in the morning,” she whispered.

She was still holding onto his arm.

 

~

 

When Danielle woke, she woke alone, with only a note to tell her where Sam and Dean were. There was nothing from Castiel, and, from what she remembered through her haze of sleepiness and fever, her cheeks turned scarlet at the thought.

She balanced her chair on the back two legs next to the air conditioning unit, hoping that she might finally cool down some. Considering she had slept late into the afternoon, it didn’t take long before Dean showed up.

There was a second of awkward eye contact as he came in, saw her sitting, and then turned away. She swallowed a disappointed sigh. He hung his nice FBI coat on a hook, grabbing a beer from the fridge. As his back was turned to her, he grunted, “Feeling any better?”

“Yeah,” she said, trying to not give away how excited she was. Talking was something, it was progress. She hoped he might say more, but instead he just flopped down on a bed and turned on the T.V. 

Not long after, Sam appeared with food. “Hey,” he said to no one in particular, setting the bags on the table.

“Hi. What’d you get?” Danielle asked, moving to the table.

Dean just held out a hand without looking away from the T.V., and Sam sighed and handed him his food. “Chicken for you, like usual.” He set a hand against her forehead. “Do you feel any better?”

“Not really,” she confessed.

“Well, I got you some medicine too.” He set a bag in front of her, and Danielle felt like she could cry; half from relief that she actually had meds, and half from happiness that Sam had thought about her.

“I thought you were fine,” Dean said. Though he said it plainly enough, there was a tone to his voice that was sharp enough to give away his irritation. 

“I didn’t want you to worry,” she said.

“So it’s okay for Sam to worry?”

“You’re mad at me.”

“He’s mad too.”

“Not as mad as you are!” She rubbed her temples, and Sam handed her a drink so she could take some of the Advils. “He’s at least talking to me.”

“I’m talking to you right now,” Dean said, spreading out his arms and shooting his brother with an exasperated glance.

“No, you’re  _ arguing  _ at me right now. Look… I messed up, okay? I was kidnapped and scared and sad and I- I couldn’t see the point! And can you blame me? Everything we have tried  _ hasn’t worked.  _ We don’t even have a plan! You might not want to admit it, but we are so far up the freakin’ creek without a paddle. I’m sorry for what I said, but this is  _ ridiculous.  _ We’re at the ends of our days - the very literal  _ apocalypse  _ \- and the two of you are so mad you’re either not talking or barely talking to me? Any day now we could die, and y’all are busy sulking and being angry-”

She broke off, wheezing as she fell into yet another coughing fit. She came to her senses as the fit came to an end, and she quickly ducked her burning face, embarrassed at the sudden emotional outburst. Instead, she fell silent, focusing only on eating.

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” Danielle’s eyes widened, and she turned around in her chair to stare at Dean. “Oh, come on, don’t give me that look. I said I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Sam said, nodding. “Really.”

Dean turned to Sam, desperate to make the situation a little less touchy-feely. “You find anything at the chick’s house?”

“Uh, no EMF, no sulfur. Demonic and ghost possession are both out. Did you find anything, Danny?”

Danielle shrugged. “Both of them were fine; no police records or anything. The girl actually had some community service stuff under her belt. She seemed really nice.”

Sam snorted. “Danielle, she was  _ you _ . Literally. No alcohol, goody-two-shoes type. She still even had her purity ring.”

“What if this thing is after good girls?” Danielle asked with no small twinge of fear in her voice, looking between the two boys.

The boys tried to hide their laughs. “I’ll check some files,” Sam told his brother. “You can go.”

“What do you mean?”

“Go. Unleash the Kraken. Dude, it’s Valentine’s Day. What do you call it? Unattached, drifter Christmas.”

Danielle pursed her lips, and Dean just shrugged. “I dunno. I guess I’m just not feeling it this year.”

Sam’s eyebrows pinched up. “It’s when a dog doesn’t eat. That’s when you know there’s a problem.”

“Wow, very patronizing concern, duly noted. Are we gonna work or not?”

Not much later, they got a call from the coroner about another “weird case” in town. Thanks to the meds, Danielle felt well enough to go with them to the morgue. They had all the organs spread out in front of them and were carefully studying each one. Danielle was staring at a liver when Dean slid a tuberware box with a heart over to her. “Be my valentine?”

“Cute,” she snorted, before she caught sight of something. She pulled the box back, closely examining the heart. “There’s some kind of marking. It looks… almost Enochian.”

Sam turned to the partner’s heart. “It’s on this one too.”

Without a word, Dean pulled out his phone. Danielle knew exactly who he was calling, and it made her heart rate pick up. Did he remember last night? Stupid question- of course he would. Would he say anything? Or pretend it didn’t happen? She didn’t know which would be better.

When the angel finally appeared, she grinned at the two of them. “I know it’s Valentine’s Day, but you two can flirt later. Come look at this, Cas.”

He strode over to her, standing near enough that their arms were brushing. Something about his nearness got her heart rate up all over again. He reached into the box and picked up the heart, without gloves. For a second, she grimaced in disgust, but as she stared at the bloody hands she remembered how his hands on her face had woken her up. 

He had been so genuinely concerned that night, not even with her health. He had even convinced her to talk to him about what was bothering her.  _ He was just being a good friend,  _ she reminded herself. She would expect as much from Sam or Dean.

Someone snapped their fingers in front of Danielle, and she jumped, stumbling back and knocking into an examination table. The table rolled back, and she clung to it, sending a tray of medical tools to the floor. They clattered loudly, and she fell to her knees as the table continued to roll away. 

Dean’s loud laugh pulled her attention back up to them. Sam stood with a bewildered, but amused, expression on his face, fingers still held up in the air. “Uh… You good, Danny?”

“I’m fine,” she said, coolly, trying to play it off. Castiel was watching her with concern, and she felt her whole face turn cherry red. Quickly, she stood, brushing off her knees as if nothing had happened. She remembered, then, all the tools she had spilled and started picking them up. As soon as she had them all gathered, she sneezed on them.

“That’s not sanitary,” Sam said.

Danielle, all but panicking, threw the tools into the sink. She snapped on the faucet and began to scrub, but only managed to slice her finger on the scalpel. It was more surprise than hurt that made her gasp, but it was enough to get the boy’s attention - though she was sure her frantic actions had never lost it.

“You gonna make it, princess?” Dean asked.

“Oh, bite me.” She sucked the blood welling up on her thumb.

“Are you okay?” Castiel demanded, stepping forward with a very …  _ intense _ expression.

Her heart sputtered in response, and she was very careful to avoid the romance-novel stare. “Yeah, s-sure.”

“So, how much did you space out during?” Sam asked.

“All of it?” Danielle said, sheepishly.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Typical. C’mon, we’ll fill you in on the way there.” Dean sauntered out, Castiel on his heels after a final, lingering stare, leaving only Danielle and Sam, who was grinning. 

“What?”

“You  _ like _ him.”

She scoffed, ignoring the way her cheeks flared scarlet. “What are we, twelve?  _ No,  _ I don’t like him. Let’s go, before Dean leaves us.”

“How long have you liked him?”

“Liked  _ who _ ?” she asked, feigning ignorance. She didn’t like Cas. Not like that, no, no.

“You know who.”

“You’re reading into things, Sam,” Danielle threw over her shoulder, proud of how nonchalant she sounded. Not that she had any reason to not sound nonchalant; she definitely  _ did not like Castiel.  _

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” he said in a singsong voice, stepping around her to jog to catch up with his brother. She narrowed her eyes at his back but followed nonetheless. The car ride to the restaurant was uncomfortable. Everywhere she looked, someone was watching her, aside from Dean, who was blissfully and completely unaware of the tension in the car. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Castiel asked after catching her rubbing her temple and grunting in pain. Her forehead was still cut up, and her black eyes had yet to go away.

Sam’s lips spread into a wide smile, and he caught her gaze in the rearview mirror. “I’m fine,” she said, though her rising blood pressure said otherwise.

After what seemed like far too long, they finally made it to the restaurant. Danielle found them a booth, Sam sidestepping her at the last second to beat Danielle to Dean’s side. He grinned as she slid in next to Cas.

“So,” Danielle said after a woman in a heart-covered apron took their orders, “we’re waiting for Cupid?”

“Yep,” Dean said. “We’re gonna gank the little sucker.”

“It’s kind of romantic,” she said, catching the sight of a paper Cupid hanging from the ceiling. “Not the killing part, but just the Cupid part. I can’t believe they actually exist.”

Castiel nodded. “They’ve existed for as long as all the other angels,” he stated.

“Really? That’s so cool.”

Castiel’s eyebrows furrowed, and she realized then that she had her chin propped up on her hands like a Hallmark movie. She quickly looked away. Sam took a sip of his drink, trying his hardest not to laugh, while Dean was staring at Danielle with a suspicious expression.

Alarm made her heart race in her chest, and she suddenly felt like she was suffocating. She didn’t even  _ like _ him, why was she acting like this? She picked up a menu and started fanning herself. “Wow, it’s hot in here.”

“I’ll say!” Sam agreed cheerfully. 

She held up a menu between her and Cas. “Stop it!” she mouthed.

He picked up his menu too. “Admit it.”

Dean snatched away Sam’s menu. “Can we act like adults here please?”

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” Danielle said as Sam said, “Says you.”

Dean shot them both with a stony glare before the waitress handed them all their food. Danielle, eager for any distraction that would keep her from staring at Castiel’s cheekbones, dug in. 

Only after soaking his burger in ketchup did Dean push it away with a sigh, completely untouched. Danielle felt the first twinge of worry. “Dean,” she stated in alarm.

“What? I’m not hungry.”

“Are you going to finish that?” Castiel asked, not waiting for an answer before he reached over the table and stole the plate. 

“Cas!” Danielle exclaimed, even more alarmed.

He took a huge bite, and a  _ smile _ flickered across his face. “This is  _ very _ good.”

All at once, the warning bells that had been going off in Danielle’s head went away, replaced only with thoughts of how adorable the angel looked. She grinned, resisting the urge to wipe away the bit of ketchup in the corner of his mouth. 

Suddenly, he stiffened, looking at the bar. “He’s here.”

The decorations hanging from the ceiling swayed in a sudden breeze. The doors were firmly shut, however, and there was no one that particularly stood out. A napkin stirred, touching a man’s cheek. “There,” Cas clarified as the man batted away the napkin and started making out with the girl next to him. 

“That is so beautiful,” she remarked, watching with wide eyes. She felt a twinge of jealousy and desperate want; if only a napkin would grab Castiel’s cheek…

“Meet me in the back,” Castiel said before disappearing.

With him gone, her heart felt empty. Suddenly, she felt so alone.  _ The back,  _ she knew, and she was on her feet headed that way before the boys had time to react. Once they got back there, however, they found only Castiel.

“Where is he?” Dean demanded.

“Here I am!” came the cheerful response as a giant, naked man appeared behind Dean and hugged him.

Danielle looked away with horror as soon as she realized that he was  _ naked.  _ Dean begged for help, unable to escape the Cupid’s death grip, but Sam and Danielle were completely unsure of what to do. The Cupid set down Dean and rushed forward to pick up Castiel next. Castiel groaned, but allowed it, and Danielle had to muffle a laugh behind her hand. 

He turned, settings his sights on Sam. “Oh, no,” he said, turning around and stepping right into the angel’s embrace.

Danielle, realizing that her turn was next, dashed behind Castiel, fisting the back of his coat. The Cupid set down Sam and sure enough turned to her. “What are you doing back there, silly?”

“No, no, you can’t hug me!” she protested, pulling Cas in front of her as a shield.

“Why not?” he asked, still approaching.

Danielle was all but panicking, her grip so tight on his coat that she was sure the fabric would rip. “You’re  _ naked, _ ” she hissed. “What about a nice handshake?” She blindly offered a hand around Cas’s body, not willing to venture out until he shook her hand and turned away. She let out a sigh of relief, leaning her head against Castiel’s shoulder blades and trying to calm her pounding heart.

“So what can I do for you?” the Cupid asked.

“Your targets; they’re slaughtering each other. Why?” Castiel demanded. 

Without another word, the Cupid suddenly burst into tears, leaving the four of them even more bewildered. Castiel awkwardly comforted the other angel, and they sat and listened as the Cupid explained everything, even spilling about how important the union of John and Mary Winchester was. Which, of course, ended with Dean hooking the Cupid in the face.

“I believe you upset him,” Castiel stated after he disappeared.

Sam shook his head in disbelief. “Dude, you just punched a Cupid.”

“I punched a dick!”

“Are we gonna talk about what’s been going on with you lately?” Sam demanded.

“ _ Me _ ?” Dean retorted, pointing an accusatory finger at Danielle. “What about Miss goo-goo eyes over there?”

“Wait, how am  _ I _ getting dragged into this?” Danielle asked in alarm, turning to Sam for help. Hopefully he would be able to get his brother to shut up before he said anything too damaging. 

“Ever since we got into town she hasn’t been able to take her eyes off Cas!”

Danielle paled, and then flushed, her eyes flickering to meet Castiel’s confused gaze for barely a second. “I have  _ not, _ ” she protested.

“Oh, please,” the oldest Winchester snorted. “Every time you get around him you practically start drooling!”

Danielle shook her head, mortified that they were even  _ having _ this conversation, let alone  _ in front of Cas.  _ “That’s not true!”

“We’re talking about you, man,” Sam interrupted. “Are we gonna talk or not?”

“Or not!” Dean barked, stalking away.

**Author's Note:**

> hey y'all! this story is on my fanfiction account, but i think i like archive better so i'm making the swap. for those of you who have already read, i'm changing things up a little and adding another major character so things are definitely gonna change. thanks for reading!


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